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The Pacific Ocean is warming at remarkable speed, and Australian climate agencies are watching closely.
Sub-surface temperatures across parts of the equatorial Pacific have surged in recent months, feeding expectations that El Niño conditions could emerge later this year.
Forecast models increasingly point in the same direction: a warmer, drier period for large parts of Australia, raising concerns about drought, bushfire risk, agricultural production and water security after several unusually wet years.
Yet the developing event is unfolding in a climate system fundamentally different from the one that produced the great El Niños of the past.
Global temperatures have climbed, oceans are carrying more heat, and communities across Australia are still recovering from floods, fires and economic shocks. The question confronting scientists, emergency planners, farmers, and insurers is no longer simply whether El Niño is returning. It is what a powerful El Niño means on a planet that has already changed.
Scientists have spent much of autumn watching an unusual pulse of warmth move through the tropical Pacific. Beneath the surface, vast reservoirs of anomalously warm water have been migrating eastward, feeding a rapid warming trend associated with El Niño development. 1
The Bureau of Meteorology says El Niño has not yet formally established because the atmosphere has not fully responded. Trade winds, pressure patterns and cloud behaviour still lag behind the ocean signal. Yet nearly every major forecasting system now points in the same direction. 2
The World Meteorological Organization estimates an 80 per cent likelihood of El Niño conditions developing during the coming months and a greater than 90 per cent chance they persist into late spring. 1
The distinction matters. El Niño is not merely a patch of warm water. It is a reorganisation of the ocean and atmosphere across half the planet.
When that machinery locks into place, Australia often finds itself on the dry side of the equation.
Older Australians remember the great El Niño events of 1982, 1997 and 2015. Those episodes delivered drought, bushfire danger and severe agricultural losses across large areas of the continent.
Yet scientists increasingly caution against viewing those events as straightforward analogues.
The world entering this developing El Niño is substantially warmer than the world that experienced earlier super-events. Global temperatures have risen by roughly 1.3°C above pre-industrial levels, loading additional heat into oceans, soils, and the atmosphere. 6
The practical consequence is uncomfortable. Moderate climate shocks can now produce impacts once associated with stronger events.
Heatwaves begin from a higher starting point. Vegetation dries faster. Fire weather thresholds arrive earlier. The same atmospheric patterns can generate larger consequences because the underlying climate system has shifted.
One of the strangest features of the Bureau's winter outlook is its apparent contradiction.
Most of Australia is expected to experience above-average temperatures during winter. Yet forecasters continue warning that severe frost remains possible. 3
The explanation lies in clear skies.
El Niño winters often suppress cloud cover across southern and eastern Australia. During the day, sunlight drives temperatures higher. Overnight, that same lack of cloud allows heat to escape rapidly into space.
Farmers understand the danger instinctively. A warm afternoon does little for a wheat crop if dawn arrives beneath a hard frost.
Across parts of Victoria, southern New South Wales and South Australia, growers are confronting exactly that uncertainty. Rainfall deficits matter. Timing matters more.
Recent rainfall has encouraged planting across parts of eastern Australia. Some growers delayed sowing while waiting for moisture. Others reduced planned acreage because of rising input costs and uncertainty about spring rainfall. 7
The gamble now sits in the soil.
A winter crop only receives one chance to establish. If moisture disappears through winter and spring, yields can collapse quickly.
The stakes extend well beyond individual farms. Australia remains one of the world's major grain exporters. Reduced production affects regional employment, export earnings and eventually supermarket shelves.
Food inflation has already become a persistent political problem. Another climate-driven shock would arrive at a time when households remain sensitive to every increase in grocery bills.
The most unsettling conversations are occurring inside emergency management agencies.
Years of wetter conditions across parts of eastern Australia have generated substantial grass growth and vegetation recovery. What appears green in winter can become highly combustible by late spring.
The Bureau's seasonal outlook already identifies elevated fire risk in parts of New South Wales and Western Australia. 4
Fire specialists know the pattern well. Wet years grow fuel. Dry years cure it.
The Black Summer bushfires remain close enough to memory that many communities need little reminder of what prolonged dryness can produce. Yet preparedness becomes harder when disasters arrive in succession. Flood recovery, housing shortages, insurance disputes and volunteer fatigue do not disappear simply because the hazard changes.
Across regional Australia another anxiety sits beneath weather forecasts.
Can communities remain insurable?
Flood losses during recent years drove sharp premium increases in many regions. Bushfire exposure continues pushing risk assessments higher in others.
Insurers increasingly rely on sophisticated climate modelling that examines future hazards rather than historical averages alone. The result can be confronting. Areas that once appeared manageable begin looking financially precarious.
The fear is not necessarily sudden withdrawal. More often it arrives through steadily rising premiums that make coverage unaffordable long before it becomes unavailable.
For households already facing mortgage stress and rising living costs, climate risk is becoming an economic issue as much as an environmental one.
Long before drought appears in satellite imagery, it regularly emerges in conversations.
Regional mental health workers have observed the pattern repeatedly. Forecasts change behaviour. People begin calculating stock numbers, water availability and financial exposure months before conditions deteriorate.
Anticipation itself becomes a burden.
The emotional exhaustion is difficult to quantify because it accumulates quietly. A farmer who survived drought then bushfire then flood may hear the phrase "strong El Niño" very differently from someone reading the same headline in a capital city.
Climate impacts are often measured in millimetres of rainfall or degrees of warming.
Communities experience them in uncertainty.
Australia is not yet in El Niño.
That caveat remains important. Atmospheric coupling has not fully occurred. Forecasts carry uncertainty. The Pacific occasionally surprises even the scientists who study it for a living.
Yet uncertainty cuts both ways.
The signals emerging across the tropical Pacific are strong enough that governments, emergency services, farmers, and businesses are already adjusting their expectations. The question is no longer whether the climate system is changing. The question is how rapidly institutions can adapt to changes arriving with increasing speed.
If El Niño strengthens through winter and spring, Australia will spend the coming months confronting a familiar phenomenon in unfamiliar conditions. The continent has always lived with climatic extremes. What appears different now is the baseline beneath them. Higher temperatures, warmer oceans and accumulated climate risk mean old weather patterns carry heavier consequences.
The Pacific is warming. The atmosphere is beginning to respond. Across Australia, preparations have already begun.
- World Meteorological Organization, Prepare for El Niño
- Bureau of Meteorology, Winter 2026 Long Range Forecast
- ABC News, BOM Tips Mild Winter After Near Record Warm May
- Bureau of Meteorology, Winter Climate Outlook Video
- Reuters, Strong El Niño May Be Imminent
- Reuters, UN Urges World To Ready For Extreme Heat Risk
- Reuters, Rainfall Aids Australia's Wheat Crop But Dry Forecasts Loom
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