El Niño Expected to Develop in Coming Months, Bringing Hotter and Drier Weather to Eastern Australia

The Imminent El Niño Event

Australia should prepare for an imminent El Niño, with the Bureau of Meteorology and other agencies forecasting that the weather phenomenon is likely to develop in the coming months.

“The models are really aligning now,” Felicity Gamble, a senior BoM climatologist, said. “We are expecting a transition to El Niño sometime during winter.”

El Niño's Impact on Australia

The World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday there was a 90% chance of an El Niño developing in the Pacific before November – a phenomenon that historically has increased the likelihood of hotter and drier conditions for Australia’s east.

El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (Enso), one of the key drivers affecting global climate. During an El Niño, sea surface temperatures in a central region of the equatorial Pacific become warmer than average, resulting in a shift in atmospheric circulation.

Historical Context and Climate Change

In Australia, El Niño has tended to result in warmer-than-average temperatures across most of the south of the country, and been linked with an increased risk of drought, heatwaves, bushfires and coral bleaching. For eastern Australia, nine of the 10 driest winter-spring periods on record have occurred during El Niño years.

Dr Andrew Watkins, a Climate Councillor and former head of climate prediction at the BoM, said: “Climate change and El Niño are a very dangerous double act. Climate change is already pushing us to more time in drought, more bushfire weather and extreme heat. Climate pollution is reinforcing some of these impacts from El Niño.”

Future Outlook

The BoM last week said that models indicated the forecast El Niño – the first since spring 2023 – would be “at least moderate in strength, with the possibility of a strong event”.

However, Gamble emphasised that the strength of an El Niño does not “necessarily correlate exactly with the strength of the impacts in Australia”, as there were other climate patterns that influenced weather locally, such as the Indian Ocean dipole and the southern annular mode.