WHILE local forecasters are being cautious and predicting "normal" summer conditions ahead, some factors suggest a far stormier outlook.

Several computer forecasting models, which have proved accurate in tracking weather anomalies, are tending towards the return of a La Nina pattern, which would mean more rain across the state, humid and stormy days and a considerable increase in the chance of cyclones across the north, The Courier Mail reports.

Those computer models are backed by an interim report by the World Meteorological Organisation, which rated 2008 – the 15th warmest year ever – as a record year for extreme weather events, and nominated Australia to have abnormal weather conditions over the coming months.

Several Australian meteorologists, climatologists and long-range forecasters agree.

They say current indicators show us heading for a wet summer like 1973-74, when Brisbane was flooded after a deep tropical depression dumped huge amounts of rain across the southeast.

From 1970 to 1975 there were 15 cyclones in the Queensland area, six of which spun weather in some way directly across Brisbane and the southeast corner.

"If people are thinking the weather is similar to what we saw in Australia during that period, they would be right," Dr Andrew Watkins, of the Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre told The Courier Mail.

Queensland long-range forecaster Hayden Walker, who studies sunspot activity, said this year's floods, storms and monsoonal activity indicated a return to the wild weather patterns of the 1970s.

"The next few years (to 2010 at least) appear to be a copycat of 1973 and 1974," he said.

Mr Walker expects above-average rainfall, extreme cyclones, flooding and cold winters until the end of the decade.

University of Southern Queensland climatologist Prof Roger Stone said indicators were showing that the past eight dry summers were an anomaly, and this summer was likely to return to a typical peak rain-producing season.

"The weather patterns we are seeing now are very similar to those which gave us lots or rain and cyclones, for example the 1974 floods," he said.

Prof Stone said weather forecasting was entering uncharted territory because it was hard to identify what role climate change would play in future extreme weather events.

"But the whole east coast (waters off Queensland) is warm enough to sustain a southern cyclone impact," he said.

In Western Australia yesterday, category two Cyclone Billy, with destructive winds of up to 130km/h, made landfall on the Kimberley coast.

There were no reports of injuries or extensive damage from the remote area and Billy was expected to weaken to a tropical low overnight.

It was the second cyclone of this season.

Read more on The Courier Mail online.