AccuWeather’s forecast for a developing El Niño points to a peak that could push above +3C, and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says that would make it the strongest on record. The bureau says most Australian capital cities now have at least an 80% chance of an unusually warm and dry spring.
Zhi-Weng Chua, a senior climatologist at the bureau, said climate models suggest the event could peak between +2.2C and above +3C. He said, “There is a realistic chance that the peak anomaly of this event will rank in the top events, with a chance it could rank as the highest. It is remarkable, and it shows just how much heat there is in the ocean.”
Zhi-Weng Chua on Niño 3.4
Chua said the highest reliable temperature value for previous El Niños was a monthly average of +2.6C in January 1983. The bureau’s own model has this event peaking at about +3.3C, which would place it above that earlier benchmark in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific.
The bureau says El Niño generally brings hotter and drier conditions in winter and spring for southern and eastern parts of Australia. It also says the strength of an El Niño does not necessarily correlate with the strength of impacts in Australia, so a stronger ocean signal does not guarantee the same jump in local conditions everywhere.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology forecast
The bureau says the phenomenon will stay in place until at least the coming summer. That leaves Australian forecasters and readers with a longer stretch of elevated risk for unusually warm and dry conditions, rather than a brief spike that fades quickly.
Zeke Hausfather, in The Climate Brink, reviewed 14 different seasonal model forecasts of the Niño 3.4 region from around the world. He wrote, “It looks like this year’s El Niño is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin,” and added, “The models are forecasting something outside the envelope of anything we have ever observed.”
The Climate Brink and 14 models
Current sea surface temperature maps in the Pacific show a huge tongue of unusually warm water extending east from the northern South American coast. For Australia, the practical reading is straightforward: the bureau’s own forecast points to a long-lived event, and its spring outlook already leans hot and dry for much of the country’s capital-city belt.
