News story warns of peaking El Niño bringing drought conditions

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oday’s Page One story by Darren Linton in the Shepparton News: “Dry forecast – weather experts predict drought conditions ahead with El Niño expected to peak in summer”.

The current El Niño event continues to strengthen but the latest modelling suggests it will peak in summer before rapidly weakening. El Niño is usually associated with below average rainfall across southern Australia.

The Bureau of Meteorology said recent oceanic and atmospheric indicators were at levels that had not been seen since the 1997-98 El Niño.

Persistently weak or reversed trade winds and a strongly negative Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), in conjunction with the ongoing warming in the tropical Pacific Ocean, indicate the El Niño is unlikely to end before early 2016.

Climate models indicate sea surface temperature in the central tropical Pacific are likely to rise further over the next few months and could exceed the levels in 1997-98 leading to a prolonged drought.

The good news is that while strong, all models suggest the current event will peak around the end of the year, followed by rapid weakening, heading into autumn 2016.

The bureau said it was too early to accurately determine the likely pattern beyond autumn, but a continued El Niño was considered the least likely outcome.

Lake Eildon, the major storage on the Goulburn system, is down to 61.5 per cent of capacity, which is well below the September level in recent years.

The El Niño outlook gives hope that the storages will get enough rainfall in 2016 to recover from a long, dry summer.

There was some good news on the water front with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder announcing an intent to trade 20 000 ML of Goulburn temporary water.

It is the first time the CEWH has confirmed a selling intent to trade water in Southern Connected System.

The intended 20 000 ML would represent less than three per cent of the total volume traded to date in the Southern Connected temporary market during the 2015-16 season.

In another front, orchardists will have a nervous 24 hours later in the week with the bureau predicting a chance of frost across the north-east and parts of the Northern Country area.

A cold southerly airstream will cross the state today and daytime temperatures will drop to 14°C.

The current forecast indicates an overnight low of 2°C and patches of morning frost on Thursday.

On another climate associated front the Melbourne Age reports: “Coastal flooding, erosion forecast, as storms gather pace”.