El Niño on Track to Bring Australia's Hottest Spring on Record

A strong El Niño weather event is growing quickly in the Pacific Ocean, and it could be the most powerful one ever recorded. Scientists say it is already pushing extra heat into Earth's atmosphere. For Australia, this means the spring of 2026 could be the hottest on record, along with less rain and a higher risk of bushfires.

El Niño happens when a large stretch of ocean water in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean gets warmer than normal. This warmer water changes wind and rain patterns all around the world. The event can last up to 12 months, and Australia is hit especially hard because it sits close to the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists measure El Niño strength using something called the Niño 3.4 index. This index tracks how much warmer the ocean is compared to its usual temperature. At the start of 2026, the index was about -1 degrees Celsius, but by late July it had jumped to nearly +2°C — the fastest rise since records began in 1900.

The Bureau of Meteorology, known as BOM, says this El Niño is heading into uncharted territory. Their models predict the index could reach +3.5°C by mid-to-late spring. The highest monthly reading ever recorded was just +2.65°C, so the 2026 event could easily break all past records.

One of the clearest signs of El Niño's grip on Australia is an index called the Southern Oscillation Index, or SOI. It measures air pressure differences between Darwin in Australia and the island of Tahiti in the Pacific. The SOI has already dropped to nearly -30, which is the lowest it has been in more than 40 years.

When the SOI drops that low, it means high pressure is sitting over Australia while low pressure builds over the Pacific. This flips the normal wind direction, which usually blows moist air from the Pacific onto Australian land. Without that moisture, rainfall across the country has dropped sharply in recent weeks.

For the rest of 2026, scientists expect rain to stay well below normal, especially across eastern Australia from August to October. A second weather pattern called a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, or IOD, is also developing. This event works like an El Niño in the Indian Ocean and could reduce rainfall even further.

Temperatures, though, are almost certain to rise far above normal. Scientists are predicting the average national temperature this spring will be about 2°C above the long-term baseline from 1961 to 1990. That could beat the current record set in 2024, when spring temperatures were 2.08°C above that same baseline.

The combination of high heat and low rainfall is what worries experts most. Dry, hot conditions dry out soil and plants, making bushfires much more likely to start and spread. However, scientists note that unlike the lead-up to the deadly Black Summer fires, most of Australia is not currently suffering from a long drought, so widespread catastrophic fires are not guaranteed.

El Niño does not just affect Australia — its reach is truly global. The warm Pacific water acts like a giant heater, pumping huge amounts of heat into the air above it. This affects wind and rain patterns as far away as Africa and Europe, where extreme heatwaves and wildfires have already been recorded this summer.

Climate change is making all of this worse. When a strong El Niño combines with the background warming caused by climate change, global air temperatures often reach record highs. The world's hottest year on record was 2024, which lined up with the end of the last El Niño, and scientists warn that 2027 could push global temperatures close to 2°C above pre-industrial levels for the very first time.