{"id":505081,"date":"2026-07-01T21:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/505081\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T21:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:15:09","slug":"el-nino-officially-declared-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/505081\/","title":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o officially declared in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Principal scientist Chris Brandolino said conditions in the Pacific Ocean had now met ESNZ\u2019s threshold, with the ocean and atmosphere now \u201ccoupled\u201d \u2013 with higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific and weaker trade winds that would normally drive rainfall towards New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Brandolino said this year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o would, at the very least, rival the intensity of the five strongest El Ni\u00f1o events<\/a> already on the modern record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are compelling reasons to believe it will exceed that, and it has all the makings to be an historically strong event … based on what we\u2019re seeing in the observations in the ocean as well as the modelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

That did not necessarily translate into equally profound effects on New Zealand but it did increase those odds, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have these strong or very strong so-called Super El Ni\u00f1os<\/a>, we tend to find stronger impacts or more profound impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were also other climate drivers that affected New Zealand\u2019s weather, but El Ni\u00f1o was currently at the steering wheel, he said.<\/p>\n

That translated into drier, windier spring conditions across most of the North Island and along the east coast of the South Island.<\/p>\n

Conversely, it historically meant more rain than usual for Southland and the lower half of the West Coast.<\/p>\n

Exactly how that played out varied event by event, Brandolino said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery El Ni\u00f1o event has its own fingerprint, its own personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the long-range forecast, parts of the South Island would first have to contend with a significant rain event next week, which would \u201chelp take the edge off\u201d the dry conditions to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWere it not for this expected rain event for parts of the eastern South Island, boy, they would be in some real dire straits,\u201d Brandolino said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, they are in meteorological drought in parts of Canterbury … To have drought in winter, that\u2019s really remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current soil moisture levels were mostly normal in the North Island, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will probably buy some time, but as we get deeper into the calendar year, the effects of increased wind, the effects of reduced rainfall, that will start to become more noticeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current heatwaves in parts of Europe and the northern hemisphere were also linked in part to El Ni\u00f1o and the hotter Pacific Ocean temperatures, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heat from the ocean, we have heat in the atmosphere, and all that heat is getting redistributed across the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was happening against a background of climate-change-driven temperature increases \u2013 meaning the hottest days were getting hotter.<\/p>\n

New Zealand, too, could expect some unusually warm days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be seeing our own version of that \u2013 perhaps not 40C or 44C like we\u2019ve seen in Europe \u2013 but certainly that spikiness is something we\u2019re expecting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country was already seeing historically high temperatures for this time of year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Bromley … we set a new national June maximum temperature: 26C a day before the shortest day of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Principal scientist Chris Brandolino said conditions in the Pacific Ocean had now met ESNZ\u2019s threshold, with the ocean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12817,83585,78,2517,117,111,43,78751,139,192804,69,59966,80],"class_list":["post-505081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-declared","tag-el","tag-in","tag-kate","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newton","tag-newzealand","tag-nio","tag-nz","tag-officially","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}