Australia has had one of its wettest springs on record as the country has endured its third consecutive La Niña event.
But with La Niña finally on the decline, the wet weather should ease in the coming weeks.
Although some forecasters are already predicting a return of El Niño next year – bringing the risk of bushfires and droughts – experts told The New Daily that bold predictions for the coming months should be treated with caution.
What is El Niño?
El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and is associated with hot weather and droughts.
The Bureau of Meteorology told TND that neutral conditions would likely return in coming months but warned against long-term forecast predictions.
“Outlooks indicate neutral El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) levels – neither La Niña nor El Niño conditions are likely in the coming months,” it said.
“However, given that forecasts made in summer for the following winter have lower levels of accuracy than those made at other times of the year, it is too early to make solid inferences and a more confident outlook will be possible late in summer and early autumn.”
Forecaster Weatherzone agreed it was too early to declare a looming El Niño with any certainty.
“[O]verall, a drying trend relative to average is now looking likely across much of the country,” it said on its website.
“Whether we see the opposite of La Niña – El Niño – with its signature hot, dry summers in the near future is not yet clear.”
Meteorologist Dr Milton Speer told TND that while El Niño was certainly a possibility, and more likely than a fourth La Niña, we won’t know for sure until the middle of next year.
“There’s a predictability gap in autumn, where you don’t know what’s going to happen for the next spring and summer, until you get over it,” he said.
“If you’re going into an El Niño, you begin to see it around June.
“I would be very unusual for us to go into a fourth La Niña … you don’t normally get two in a row, or three in a row, let alone four. So it’s much more likely to be either neutral or swing into an El Niño next year, just in terms of odds.”
There is some computer modelling from overseas that suggest that El Niño may return in 2023.
The graph below shows the likelihood of an El Niño occurring according to modelling from US Climate Prediction Centre and Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society.
It’s important to note that these organisations use a more relaxed threshold than Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology for identifying La Niña and El Niño.
