Soil water repellency (SWR) is a major agro-ecological management issue on sandy soils. It is triggered by hydrophobic organic compounds that limits soil water absorption and impacts soil functionality. Recent modelling studies have suggested that climate change will increase the severity of SWR; potentially compounding these effects. This study investigated the effects of climatic and edaphic factors on SWR in surface (0-10 cm) soils from 355 sites across approximately 50,000 km² in south-western Australia. This region has a Mediterranean climate and the data set had marked temperature (mean minimum temperature 7.7 – 12.2°C, mean maximum temperature 19.0 – 22.9°C, rainfall (507 – 1443 mm/year) and pan evaporation (1169 – 1772 mm/year) gradients. SWR was not restricted to sandy soils, occurring across a wide range of clay contents, expression being dependent on OC content. Boosted regression tree analysis indicated that 10 soil variables explained 78% of the variance in SWR, with clay, silt and OC contents making the greatest contribution. This is consistent with previous studies. Adding the four climatic variables explained 84% of the variance of SWR, with maximum temperature the major contributing factor. Thus, while soil properties dominated the expression of SWR, climate had a secondary impact. Maximum temperature had a negative correlation with SWR, and climate change induced increases in temperature may therefore result in decreases in SWR. SWR is also very likely to increase with climate mitigation activities that increase soil carbon stores, given the strong relationship between SWR and OC content. It is recommended that the induction of SWR be considered in soil carbon mitigation project protocols.