Bureau of Meteorology declares an El Nino is underway | September 19, 2023 | Stock & Land - video Dailymotion

Dr Karl Braganza discusses the Bureau of Meteorology's decision to declare an El Nino.

Transcript

00:00 The Bureau is today declaring that an El Niño event is underway in the Pacific Ocean.

00:05 At the same time, we are declaring that a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, or positive

00:09 IOD event, is occurring in the oceans to our west.

00:13 Both these climate drivers have a significant influence on the Australian climate, in particular

00:18 favouring warmer and drier conditions, particularly over spring, but also into early summer.

00:24 Those conditions are associated or accompanied by an increase in fire danger and extreme

00:29 heat risk.

00:31 Importantly, with the El Niño now settling into that pattern in the Pacific Ocean, that

00:35 increases our confidence that this pattern is going to last until the end of summer,

00:41 and that will mean that we are likely to see a continuation of the warm and dry conditions

00:46 over the summer months in particular.

00:48 Importantly for our preparation for summer, particularly for fire danger and heat hazards,

00:54 we are already seeing extreme conditions in some parts of the continent, particularly

00:59 in the duration of heat.

01:00 So we've had an extended period of warm and dry weather to start spring.

01:05 Today we've had catastrophic fire conditions on the south coast of New South Wales, just

01:09 to underscore that risk.