Europe is sweltering through its deadliest heatwave in years — so what does this mean for Australia?
Dozens dead and temperature records falling across the continent while a completely separate climate system takes hold in the Pacific.
EUROPE has spent the past week baking under temperatures up to 18 degrees above where they should be in late June, with dozens of people dead across the continent.
France hit 44.3 degrees, its hottest day on record. Germany broke its all-time high twice in 48 hours. England smashed its June record three days running, peaking at 37.3 degrees and beating a mark that had stood since 1976. Motorways cracked. Rail lines warped. Children died in cars.
The cause is a weather pattern called an omega block — a ridge of high pressure over the North Atlantic that traps hot air in place for days. It is brutal, but temporary. It will break.
Australia is not connected to that heatwave. El Niño, which the Bureau of Meteorology confirmed this month, is an entirely different system operating on the other side of the planet in the Pacific Ocean.
One does not cause the other. But both are made worse by the same thing — a warming climate pushing extremes further than they used to go — and both matter to Australians for different reasons.
Europe's heatwave is the news of the day. El Niño is what is coming for us over the next six to 12 months.
Most models point to a strong to very strong event lasting well into the second half of 2026.
The simplest way to understand it: normally, trade winds push warm water across the Pacific towards Australia, and that warm water feeds the rain. During El Niño, those winds weaken, the warm water drifts back towards South America, and Australia dries out. La Niña is the opposite — stronger winds, more warm water near us, heavier rain and more cyclones. The 2022 floods came during a La Niña that lasted three years straight.
El Niño's track record here is not good. Nine of the 10 driest winter-spring periods in southeast Australia happened during El Niño years. The 2002-03 event cut national wheat production by 40 per cent. The most recent one in 2023-24, combined with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, delivered Australia's driest three-month stretch on record.
The BOM outlook for July to September already shows below-average rainfall likely across parts of southern and eastern Australia, with above-average temperatures almost everywhere. If a positive IOD develops alongside El Niño — which models suggest is possible — the dry signal gets worse. That is the same combination that drove the record conditions in late 2023.
This El Niño is expected to peak over summer, when the risks shift to heatwaves, bushfire weather and marine heatwaves. Australia has recorded 14 of its 15 warmest years since 2000.
Europe's heatwave will end when the pattern collapses. Australia's El Niño has barely started.