Claim: The “Super El Niño” is on Track to be the Wettest Ever

Essay by Eric Worrall

As storms soak the Aussie East Coast, people are starting to ask, whatever happened to that Super El Niño which was supposed to bring dry conditions?

El Niño set to be wettest on record as storms soak Australia’s east

By ABC meteorologist Tom Saunders
Posted Sat at 5:22am

This year remains on track to become Australia’s wettest El Niño year on record, and the first ever with above-average national winter-spring rainfall.

October has been particularly damp thanks to an ongoing outbreak of showers and thunderstorms forecast to affect more than half the country during the next seven days.

Already this week, Sydney has been drenched by more than 100 millimetres of rain, central Queensland has been lashed by severe flash flooding, while outback storms brought destructive winds to Alice Springs.

The focus for storms today is Queensland where an influx of tropical moisture could pave the way for intense cells, and the risk of flash flooding, most likely over inland regions south of Longreach.

…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-17/2026-may-become-australias-wettest-el-nino-weather-year/107273884

Obviously the “El Niño” still has a while to run, so things might turn dry in early 2027. But in a dry country like Australia, an El Niño which unexpectedly fills reservoirs rather than emptying them seems like a welcome reprieve.

And if Global Warming actually is responsible for making our El Niños wetter, lets please have some more global warming.

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10 Comments

Vincent

October 19, 2026 6:24 pm

deleted!

Mario Barbafiera

October 19, 2026 6:35 pm

How wet was 1877? Are there any useful records? How are they sure its the wettest on record, and what exactly does “on record” actually mean, and is it actually useful?

Mike Larkin

Reply to Mario Barbafiera

October 19, 2026 9:12 pm

The Australian colonies were collecting weather and rainfall data well before 1877, and there are also a lot of local rural datasets that go back that far.

1877 set a whole slew of still standing flood level peaks, some of which are well above any reached since, on un dammed rivers.

1saveenergy

Reply to Mario Barbafiera

October 20, 2026 12:51 am

[“what exactly does “on record” actually mean“]

That they are spinning the data at 45 RPM (:-))

Brian.

October 19, 2026 6:59 pm

Back in April, the same Tom Saunders was predicting a dramatically drier-than-normal spring for southeast Australia.
https://x.com/BrianBellia/status/2112362316130095151

SxyxS

Reply to Brian.

October 20, 2026 2:10 am

Climate Science is the art of being so exeptional
that everything you predict is a sensation.

So much that even the most average boring season is an unprecedented,record-breaking Armageddon.

MarkH

October 19, 2026 8:15 pm

So, they start out with the fear mongering of the “most strongest el nino EVAR!” propaganda, now it’s turning into one of those “wet el nino’s” that we’re all so familiar with in Australia. It would be nice if it’s somewhere around a normal warm Summer for once, I’d like a good tomato harvest.
They really aren’t trying very hard.

Andrew St John

October 19, 2026 8:59 pm

What is the state of the Indian Ocean Dipole?

Mike Larkin

October 19, 2026 9:09 pm

Not just east coast Australia, I’m in the Murray-Darling Basin and we hit our long term yearly average at the start of the month.

This despite the BoM throwing out drier than usual predictions every fortnight since their one and only “average” prediction of the year, which was the one at the start of January.

Eric Worrall

Author

Reply to Mike Larkin

October 19, 2026 10:06 pm

I have a farmer friend who is desperately trying to get a shed built. He thought he wouldn’t need a shed for his hay, but I guess nature had other plans.