OPINION: Is Australasian shipping ready for the strongest El Niño on record?

El Niño has returned to the Pacific, and while much of the attention has focused on its impact on agriculture and regional economies, its implications for shipping deserve equal attention.

Having spent more than two decades at sea and now leading global routing at Sofar Ocean, I've learned that the greatest operational risk is rarely the weather itself. It is making decisions based on assumptions that no longer hold.

That challenge only grows in 2026: if forecasts prove correct, this could rank among the strongest El Niño events on record and that provides fewer historical analogues to plan against. Climatology alone won't be enough. Better decisions depend on understanding what the ocean is doing today, and what it's likely to do tomorrow.

What the scientists say

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) is currently forecasting a strong to very strong El Niño, with around half its models suggesting the event could peak at levels among the highest observed since 1950. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center reached a similar conclusion in an El Niño Advisory in June 2026, confirming the event has formed and is expected to strengthen through year-end, with a 97% chance of persisting through early spring 2027. The Niño 3.4 index climbed to +1.7°C in mid-June, and forecasters now put 63% odds on sea surface temperatures exceeding 2.0°C this fall — the threshold for a "very strong" El Niño.

Because so few comparable events exist in the historical record, forecasting the regional impacts of a potential super El Niño remains a significant challenge for seasonal models alone. 

That's why real-time data matters most for shipping decisions. Sofar's network of direct ocean observations, combined with high-resolution forecasting, tracks winds, waves, and currents as they evolve to help operators cut through model uncertainty and make safer, more informed routing decisions as conditions grow more volatile.

What changes for Australasian shipping?

Iron ore out of Port Hedland, LNG ex Dampier, coal from Newcastle, and the trans-Tasman all cross areas where winds, wave heights and ocean currents can shift quickly as the event develops.

On average, El Niño years bring calmer conditions to Australian waters overall — fewer tropical cyclones, particularly off Queensland, and generally easing swell as the season progresses. But averages can mask real volatility: a seasonally calmer year doesn't rule out sharp, short-lived extremes, and the dominant risk for Australian trade this year is arguably landside — drought and elevated bushfire risk capable of disrupting coastal logistics and cutting export volumes from key regions.

The region is entering a harder-to-predict phase more broadly. Sustained disruption in the Middle East continues to force major rerouting away from traditional corridors and raise costs, while an Oceania peak-season capacity crunch tightens vessel space and squeezes scheduling flexibility. Schedule reliability, while improving, remains below historical norms — shrinking the margin for error on every voyage.  For vessel operators, the real challenge isn't knowing El Niño is present but understanding how conditions will evolve over the next few hours and days along a specific route. Small shifts in wave direction, current strength or wind patterns can measurably affect fuel consumption, vessel motions, schedule performance and safety.

From laycan penalties to grain export volumes

The BoM's outlook points to drier conditions across central and eastern Australia through winter and spring, and a weak grain harvest in South Australia or Victoria will show up as lower export volumes out of Adelaide, Geelong and Portland.

For shipping companies, the commercial consequences of a strong El Niño extend well beyond rough weather. Increased forecast uncertainty reduces confidence in ETAs and makes schedule commitments harder to keep. A shift of just 12 hours can blow a laycan window, triggering demurrage disputes or missed berth slots that ripple through an entire rotation.

Laycan management becomes more difficult too, with charterers and owners facing hard calls on sailing early or delaying for safer weather. Meanwhile speed and route decisions made days out often need mid-voyage revision, costing fuel, time, or both. Charter-party friction also rises: "good weather" clauses assume a shared, verifiable picture of conditions, but when routing and observed weather don't align cleanly, owners and charterers can dispute performance claims for months after a voyage ends.

Shifting conditions

I remember this firsthand from a voyage I commanded, sailing from Singapore to Geelong and Port Bonython in August 2017. As we closed in on the Australian coast, we ran into heavy swells that made a direct approach too risky to continue. On the advice of our weather routing company, we stopped and drifted for 48 hours, riding out the extreme conditions before resuming our passage. That delay pushed back our discharge of crude at Geelong, rippling into the port's schedule. It was a clear reminder that the final approach to berth isn't something you plan once and forget.

Conditions off the Australian coast can shift quickly, and having someone tracking those conditions in real time is often what separates a delayed but incident-free arrival from a much costlier outcome. That's the commercial reality: schedule reliability is a contractual metric, and the gap between forecast and observed conditions is where laycan penalties, fuel overruns, and disputes originate.

The bottom line for this season

A strong El Niño isn't a year for treating weather as a routine planning input. Voyage plans that would normally hold steady from departure to arrival may need frequent review as forecasts evolve and ocean conditions shift. The instinct in an unpredictable year is to add buffer to ETAs, speed reductions and build in contingency days. That guards against the worst case but it erodes competitiveness when conditions turn out benign and doesn't reduce uncertainty so much as hedge against it.

The better approach is to shorten the decision cycle: rather than committing to a route and speed profile at departure and holding it, operators need forecasts that update often enough to catch shifts in storm tracks and sea state before they become costly and the operational judgment to act on them. That means treating routing as a continuous process, not a one-time plan. El Niño 2026 won't hit every voyage the same way. Some routes will barely notice; others will face real disruption.

The operators who come through it best won't be the ones who add the most buffer. They'll be the ones who kept re-checking the forecast against what the ocean was actually doing and were willing to change course when the two stopped matching.