This El Nino could make 2027 the hottest year ever

Europe is struggling beneath a record-breaking heatwave and Australia is staring down the barrel of a hot, dry summer - but 2027 could be hotter still, experts have warned.

In fact, the current super-strong El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean could contribute to next year being the hottest ever recorded.

The Bureau of Meteorology declared an El Nino weather event in force last month, and forecasters have already warned it could be unusually potent.

But an assessment of different forecasting models show things could be even worse than feared.

“It looks like this year’s El Nino is not only very likely to be the strongest event since reliable records began – it may end up the strongest by a truly mind-blowing margin,” Zeke Haufthauser wrote in The Climate Brink newsletter.

Haufthauser said the “multi-model median” forecast for the El Nino, including forecasts from the BoM and NASA, showed the weather event peaking at +3.6 degrees on the key Nino 3.4 index.

That’s by far the highest on record, and could contribute to global temperatures soaring next year.

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“Because global temperature lags ENSO (the El Nino-Southern Oscillation index) by around three to five months, most of this event’s warming will land in 2027, which is now shaping up to be a genuinely alarming year and the warmest on record by a sizable margin,” Haufthauser wrote.

The BoM has said the strength of an El Nino event does not necessarily correspond to weather conditions in Australia.

But an El Nino is associated with hotter, dryer conditions in the country’s eastern states.

“The expected strength of an event is based on forecasts of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific,” the BoM’s forecast said.

“Most models suggest this event is likely to be strong to very strong.”

The Bureau forecast the El Nino event to last “well into” the second half of 2026, though its influence will wane as summer takes hold.

Last year was the second-warmest on record for the south-west Pacific, behind 2024, according to the World Meteorogical Organisation.