New Zealand is heading into an El Niño, and the forecasters who called it say this one has the potential to be among the strongest on record. Earth Sciences New Zealand, the agency formed from the merger of NIWA and GNS Science, formally declared the event on 2 July, joining weather agencies in Australia, Japan and the United States that had already made the call.
El Niño is a natural swing in the Pacific Ocean and atmosphere. Every few years the trade winds that normally push warm water towards Asia weaken, letting warm water pool in the central and eastern Pacific. That shift changes weather patterns right across the globe, and New Zealand sits squarely in its path. Principal scientist Chris Brandolino said the ocean and the atmosphere had now become “coupled”, with higher sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific and weaker trade winds locking the pattern in.
Brandolino did not hold back on how big this one could get. He said the event could “rival the intensity of the five strongest” on record and “has all the makings to be an historically strong event”. Speaking to 1News, he described a pattern that models have been converging on for months rather than a sudden surprise.
For most New Zealanders the practical question is simple. What does it mean for the weather outside the window. The short answer, according to Earth Sciences New Zealand, is a drier and windier spring for the north and the east, and a wetter run for the south and west of the South Island, with Southland and the lower West Coast the most likely to cop the extra rain. The east of both islands and the upper North Island are the areas most at risk of running short of water as the season warms up.
Temperatures are expected to be what the agency calls “spiky”, with bursts of unusually warm days rather than a steady climb. New Zealand has already had a taste of that. Bromley in Christchurch hit 26 degrees on a day just before the shortest day of the year, a new national record for a June maximum. Brandolino was careful to say New Zealand is unlikely to see the 40 to 44 degree extremes that have hit parts of the northern hemisphere, but the warm spikes are a feature of the pattern rather than a one off.
One line Brandolino repeats often is worth holding onto. “Every El Niño event has its own fingerprint, its own personality,” he said, a reminder that the label tells you the broad direction but not the exact outcome for any one town or farm.
The bigger worry sits with the people who work the land. Drier and windier conditions dry out soils, and dry soils bring two problems at once, less feed for stock and more fuel for fire. Professor Anita Wreford of Lincoln University, writing in the Science Media Centre expert reaction, put the farming cost plainly. “Drought conditions negatively affect agricultural production, often requiring supplementary feed to be purchased,” she said, the kind of expense that lands hardest when a dry autumn has already thinned the grass.
The fire risk drew its own warnings. Shana Gross of the Bioeconomy Science Institute said the ingredients for trouble were straightforward. “Key things to be aware of are dry conditions where fuels can ignite and high winds where fire can spread,” she said. Her colleague Veronica Clifford added that “under El Niño there are increased odds for severe fire danger in regions that experience conditions that are warm, windy, and drier than usual”, pointing to the east and possibly the north as the places to watch.
Water supply is the quieter risk that builds over months. Professor Cate Macinnis-Ng of the University of Auckland warned that a long dry run does not just brown off the lawns. “If dry conditions continue for several months, especially if they remain into the warmer summer months, trees, other plants and animals will start to suffer water stress,” she said. Dr Helen Rutter of Lincoln Agritech pointed to the groundwater that many rural communities and irrigators rely on, noting that below normal winter rainfall in several regions “may mean we get below normal groundwater recharge”, leaving less in the bank for a dry summer.
It would be easy to read all of this as a settled forecast of disaster, and here the scientists urge some caution. Dr Luke Harrington of the University of Waikato offered a useful reality check, noting that El Niño is not the only path to a drought. “Keep in mind that some of our biggest droughts, including 2012/13, 2007/08, 2000/01 and 1988/89, all occurred during either ENSO neutral or La Niña conditions,” he said, a reminder that the pattern loads the dice towards dry in the east but does not guarantee the worst, and that some of New Zealand’s harshest dry spells arrived with no El Niño at all.
History still gives good reason to prepare. Earlier strong El Niño events in 1982 and 1983, 1997 and 1998, and 2015 and 2016 brought severe droughts that cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars. Peak conditions this time are expected to arrive over the summer of 2026 and 2027, which gives farmers, councils and fire authorities a window over the coming months to check water storage, feed budgets and fire plans before the dry really sets in.
There is also a near term twist. A significant rain event was forecast for the week after the declaration, offering some relief to the drought hit east of the South Island before the drier El Niño pattern takes a firmer grip. For now the message from Earth Sciences New Zealand is less about panic and more about planning, a clear heads up that the season ahead is likely to run dry in the places that can least afford it.
How is the weather shaping up where you are, and are you already planning for a dry summer on the farm or in the garden. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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