Parched Canterbury braces for potentially record-breaking El Niño

Thursday, 2 July 2026

Stronger westerly winds are expected to bring hotter, drier conditions to eastern parts of the South Island.

El Niño has been declared and could intensify into one of the strongest events on record, raising the risk of a dry, windy spring and a wider economic squeeze across the South Island.

The warning is particularly acute for Canterbury, which is entering the event with unusually low soil moisture after Christchurch recorded its driest month on record in May.

Christchurch’s Port Hills viewed from central Christchurch on Wednesday evening. The city recorded its driest month on record in May.

Earth Sciences New Zealand declared the El Niño on Thursday, and said it could bring a dry and windy spring to Canterbury, Marlborough and eastern Otago, while increasing rainfall on the West Coast and in Southland.

The most immediate pressure is expected to fall on agriculture, but lower production and higher feed costs could flow through food processing, transport, contractors and businesses in regional towns.

Christchurch’s Port Hills Farm Track and Mt Vernon, right.

Consumers may eventually feel the effects through food and electricity prices, although much will depend on the event’s duration, where rain falls and how overseas producers are affected.

The sea has already warmed by more than 1C above average and is expected to warm further, but has not yet reached the 2C threshold sometimes used to describe a “super” El Niño.

Earth Sciences New Zealand and MetService meteorologist Jon Tunster said Canterbury was entering the event from an already dry position, with stronger westerly winds likely to increase evaporation and compound the effect of reduced rainfall.

Troy Baisden, co-President of the Association of Scientists, said models suggested this would “very likely be the strongest El Nino ever”.

“So much so, that historical understanding of strong El Nino effects may not be predictive for this year.”

Wildfire researcher Veronica Clifford said 'no two El Niño’s produce the same outcomes' but usually they meant a greater risk of fire in the north and eastern regions of both islands where conditions were warmer, windier and drier.

Lincoln University climate adaptation economist Professor Anita Wreford said agriculture would face the most direct impact, but the effects could spread through processing, transport and spending across regional economies.

The scale of the economic impact would depend on how long the dry conditions last, how widely they spread and whether farmers have secure water and affordable feed.

An aerial view of houses in Halswell, Christchurch, that were severely damaged in an El Niño storm in January 1983.

Irrigation could protect some dairy farms from lower rainfall, but higher demand for supplementary feed would still put pressure on margins.

A regional drought could be managed by bringing feed in from elsewhere, but that buffer would disappear if dry conditions affected much of the country.

“If it’s spread more widely, then there’s no opportunity to do that because everyone’s struggling.”

Wreford said the economic effects were likely to lag behind the declaration, with soil moisture, hydro-lake levels and spring pasture growth providing the first signs of how serious the impact could become.

Rainfall during the five strongest historical El Niño events shows a clear South Island divide, with drier-than-usual conditions east of the Southern Alps and wetter weather in the west and south.

Because El Niño affects food production worldwide, it could push up global prices for red meat and dairy products. That may help New Zealand exporters, but it could also make food more expensive for Kiwi households.

“The effect on our consumers and on the price of food can be really negative when we’re already experiencing high food prices,” Wreford said.

Electricity prices could also come under pressure if hydro generation fell and more expensive fossil-fuel generation was needed, although that would depend on where the rain fell and how hydro lake levels responded.

Wreford pointed to Reserve Bank research published before the 2015 El Niño, which estimated such an event could leave New Zealand’s GDP about 0.4% lower after four quarters than it otherwise would have been.

That would be a material setback for an economy that grew just 0.2% during 2025, although the estimate was national, based on previous events and was not a forecast of the cost of the newly declared event.

The eventual impact may also be influenced by the warmer climate in which this El Niño is developing.

Tunster said climate change was likely to act as a “modifier” on the pattern rather than cause it. Warmer seas around New Zealand could intensify some of its effects, making rain events wetter in the west and hot spells more severe in the east.

Wreford said a more intense or longer-lasting event would likely carry a greater economic cost.

“The duration of the drought is really critical to how much of an impact that it has on the economy.”