Several days of rain thunderstorms have caused flooding in rivers across four Australian states during the last few days.

The video below shows cloud, rain and thunderstorms spreading over Australia from west to east between Tuesday and Friday.

This week’s wet and stormy weather was caused by a low pressure trough, cold front and low pressure system being fed by abundant moisture coming from the oceans surrounding Australia.

While this type of weather pattern is normal for September, the atmosphere over Australia is being loaded up with more moisture than usual thanks to three active climate drivers:

A negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) to the northwest of Australia

A La Niña-like pattern to the northeast of Australia

A positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM) to the south of Australia

This trio of wet-phase climate drivers caused widespread falls of 20 to 40 mm over several states and territories in the past few days, with isolated totals exceeding 60mm. For some places, this was more than two months’ worth of rain.

In QLD, Charleville’s 50.6 mm during the 24 hours to 9am on Friday was its highest September daily total since 2004. It was also more than double the September monthly average of 24 mm.

In response to this week’s heavy rain, minor to moderate flooding has developed between central QLD an eastern Tas, including parts of Vic and western NSW. Major flooding may develop in some NSW rivers over the coming days.

Lighter showers and storms will continue over parts of southeastern Australia during the rest of Friday and Saturday, before drier weather returns to most areas from Sunday.

Looking further ahead, another round of rain and thunderstorms should spread across Australia next week, reaching WA on Tuesday, SA on Wednesday and southeastern Australia from Thursday. There is a good chance that this rain will be heavy enough to cause renewed river level rises in and around the Murray Darling Basin late next week.