IT looks set to be a “normal” summer, according to Sean Carson, senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology.

For anyone who can’t remember what a normal summer is, Sean says there will be plenty of sunshine, some rain, a thunderstorm or two – but “nothing severe”.

“For the last two summers we have been in a ‘la niña” weather event, which has resulted in a lot of rain with two wet summers back to back,” says Sean. “Many of the storms in and around Canberra generated flash flooding at that time, although there wasn’t so much hail or wind damage.

“We’re now getting to a neutral phase, with a fairly normal thunderstorm season. We’ll get our fair share of rain, and perhaps more wind or hail damage than we’ve been used to – nothing severe, but more so than in the last two years.

“There should be a drop in river flooding, like we saw in Queanbeyan in recent times.”

The last two summers were pretty rubbish, admits Sean, with only three days reaching over 35 degrees in the past two years combined.

“This summer we’ll be getting more hot days,” he says. “We won’t be drying out, but it should be a good summer, like we haven’t seen since the 1980s and 1990s.

“Prior to the past two wet years, we were pretty dominated by 10 years of drought and bushfires.

“This year we can expect more days down the beach and the ice cream man won’t be going out of business!”