Australia raises alert warning on El Nino

OREANDA-NEWS. April 15, 2015. Australia's chances of the El Nino weather phenomenon occurring this year have increased to at least a 70pc probability, triggering an alert warning from its official weather forecaster.

El Nino is often associated with below-average winter and spring rainfall over east Australia and above-average daytime temperatures over the southern half of Australia.

A drier and warmer winter could put some strain on water resources in one of the driest countries in the world and may have an adverse affect on fuel demand for heating in the winter period, which in turn could affect both gas and coal demand, which are the two main fuels for power generation and heating.

But April-June is forecast to be wetter than average across much of Australia because of warm conditions in the Indian Ocean, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said.

Ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific continue to be warmer than average, trade winds remain weaker than average, and all models surveyed suggest further ocean warming will occur. BoM's El Nino Southern Oscillation (Enso) tracker as a result has been raised to the El Nino alert level, indicating at least a 70pc chance of the weather phenomenon.

Tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures are now just shy of El Nino levels and large areas of warmer than average water below the surface are likely to keep these waters warm for some time, BoM said. "This increases the odds of atmospheric factors coming into play, and hence further warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean," it said.

All international climate models monitored by the bureau indicate that El Nino thresholds will be reached or exceeded by June, the bureau said. But the accuracy of model outlooks during the Enso transition period is lower than for outlooks made at other times of the year, it said. It last year warned of an El Nino event but it never eventuated.

2014 was the third warmest in Australia since observations began. Seven of Australia's 10 warmest years on record have been in the 13 years from 2002, with just one cooler than average year in the past decade in 2011. The 10-year mean temperature for 2005-14 was 0.55°C above average, the highest level on record.