It’s certainly not news that Australia’s farmers want to hear but the prospects for a hotter and drier than usual year for much of Australia are increasing.
Climate models show an increased chance of a 2014 El Nino climate pattern forming in the tropical Pacific Ocean, said Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
Such a weather event would lead to possible droughts in Southeast Asia and Australia and floods in South America, which could hit key rice, wheat and sugar crops.
The BOM said an El Nino could occur during the southern hemisphere winter, May-July, with Australian cattle and grain farmers already struggling with drought, which has cut production.
The last El Nino in 2009/10 was categorised weak to moderate.
The most severe El Nino was in 1998 when freak weather killed more than 2000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.
“The latest climate model survey by the shows that the tropical Pacific is very likely to warm in the coming months, with most models showing sea surface temperatures reaching El Nino thresholds during the southern hemisphere winter,” the BOM said in an emailed statement.
Australia’s outlook echoes similar forecasts from other weather bureaus in Japan and the United States, which each said an El Nino was increasingly like.
Surface waters in the equatorial Pacific “have warmed significantly over the past two months”, with further warming expected in coming months, the bureau said in its fortnightly update.
Temperatures in some areas have risen half a degree in the past two weeks alone and are as much as five or six degrees above normal, said Dr David Jones, head of climate monitoring at the bureau.
“Things are starting to move and 1997 was probably the last time we’ve seen such a temperature anomaly,” said Dr Jones.
About 80 per cent of Queensland and much of northern New South Wales have already been declared to be in drought, prompting the federal Liberal-National government to earmark $280 million in low-cost loans to help farmers stay in business.
Signals of an approaching El Nino include two strong westerly wind bursts observed so far this year. The Southern Oscillation Index, a gauge of trends, has dropped to 13, its lowest 30-day value in four years, the bureau said.
The latest climate models also project warming of the Pacific waters to continue in coming months, with surface temperatures “reaching El Niño thresholds during the southern hemisphere winter”, the bureau said.
The effects of an El Nino or even a near miss will likely show up as reduced rainfall in winter and spring, particularly in inland regions west of the Great Divide, Dr Jones said.
