Why Australia is being soaked when a record El Niño is forming

Why Australia's weather is seeing a soaking while a record El Niño is forming El Niño is synonymous with drought in Australia, but another rainband is lining up to soak the nation this week. This follows multiple widespread soakings earlier this year, and 2026 is on track to become Australia's wettest El Niño year on record. Considering its impact on precipitation eases through spring and diminishes by summer, the country is therefore unlikely to face widespread prolonged drought. But while rainfall this year has been surprisingly abundant, temperatures are following a more traditional El Niño script with spring and summer heat tipped to challenge all-time records. Loading...2026 rain surpassing expectations The year began with widespread rain through February and March, but considering a wet La Niña phase — the opposite of El Niño — off the Pacific was active, this was no surprise. However, even following a rapid transition to El Niño through autumn, and an intensification towards an unprecedented event in winter, frequent rainbands are still traversing Australia. As a result, year-to-date rainfall is an all-time record for an El Niño year, with the national average this year already more than 400 millimetres. August rainfall is looking particularly impressive for an El Niño year. Through 27 previous Pacific warm phases since 1900, the nation's average August rain is a paltry 13mm. But during the next five days, a mammoth cloudband will engulf the southern two-thirds of the country as a stream of tropical moisture arrives off the Indian Ocean. For parts of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, the system will ensure one of the wettest Augusts on record. Patchy rain will initially spread across Western Australia this weekend, before reaching SA on Monday and eastern states on Tuesday and Wednesday. A second band may then follow from south-west WA on Wednesday to eastern states next weekend. As a result, most of south-east Australia and parts of WA can expect between 15 and 50mm before the end of the month. For some towns in northern SA it has already been the wettest August on record, including at Arkaroola where 97mm easily exceeds the previous record of 72mm from August 1973. Simmering Indian Ocean supplying moisture It is a reasonable call that winter rainfall predictions across Australia were a little off the mark. The outlook issued by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in late May heavily favoured a dry season, but away from the east coast and south-west WA the season has turned out wetter than normal. So why isn't 2026 playing by the rules when Pacific warming, the heartbeat of El Niño, is on track to become the strongest on record？ Firstly, not every event is the same, there is always natural variability in weather, and history has proven the strength of an El Niño is not proportional to impacts on Australia. But despite this expected variability, a trend has emerged on how El Niño is affecting Australia — we are getting wetter. The graph below illustrates the shift, with yearly totals during El Niño years early last century ranging from 320mm to 445mm, while the past 20 years have brought between 437mm and 482mm, with 2026 on track to pass 500mm. This is mostly an influence of climate change which is causing Australia's annual average precipitation to steadily climb. However, this increase is enhanced in El Niño years which opens up the possibility that climate change may be indirectly altering how El Niño affects Australia's weather patterns. Another key factor is the Pacific Ocean is just one of multiple influences on Australia's climate variability. One possibility which could be negating El Niño this year is what is happening off the west coast — waters across the central Indian Ocean are currently simmering. "Warmer waters can increase atmospheric moisture, providing favourable conditions for rainfall-producing weather systems such as north-west cloud bands and frontal systems that can draw tropical moisture across inland Australia," BOM senior climatologist Zhi-Weng Chua said. Wet spring and summer a possibility, but heat could break records The winter season is when El Niños have historically had the greatest impact on rainfall across Australia. During 16 past moderate-to-strong events, Australia's winter rainfall has decreased by an average of 32 per cent compared to neutral years, but that figure drops to 20 per cent in spring and just 2 per cent in summer. Since winter has not brought widespread drought, the 2026 unprecedented El Niño may leave Australia relatively unscathed. And the BOM's latest spring modelling is very confident the western half of Australia is in for a wet spring. The outlook is mixed for eastern states from near-even odds of it being wetter or drier in parts of Queensland and NSW to an 80 per cent probability of below-median rain in pockets of Victoria and Tasmania. What is far more certain is our mild winter should transition into a scorching spring and summer. "El Niño events typically favour warmer-than-average conditions across … the southern two-thirds of Australia," Mr Chua said. But warmer than average could be an understatement since modelling is tipping southern Australia will bake in mean temperatures up to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels during the coming months. "Exceptionally warm surrounding oceans … may also be enhancing the forecast warmth signal," Mr Chua said. "Together, these factors are occurring against a backdrop of elevated global and regional temperatures, increasing the probability of an unusually warm spring."