El Niño headlines typically focus on extreme weather and its negative impacts.
But the world's most significant driver of meteorological variability can also produce positive outcomes, including a reduction in the number of tropical cyclones in Australia.
And modelling shows our 2026/27 cyclone season, which runs from November 1 to April 30, could be one of the quietest on record.
Cyclone forecast for 2026/27 season
Tropical cyclones are violent, spiralling wind and rain systems fuelled by the latent energy released as water vapour from warm seas condenses.
Technically, a tropical cyclone is defined by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) as a low-pressure system with winds of at least 63 kilometres per hour, equivalent to gusts above 90 km/h, in at least three of the four quadrants around the centre.
Once formed they are categorised based on peak wind gusts, with a category 2 declared when speeds reach 125 km/h, a category 3 — 165 km/h, category 4 — 225 km/h, then finally a category 5 for gusts of 280 km/h or above.
The Australian area of responsibility, shown in the map below, spans from 160 degrees east, encompassing most of the Coral Sea, to 90 degrees east, more than 2,000 kilometres off the WA west coast.
The BOM no longer issues an official seasonal cyclone outlook for Australia, previously stating that climate change has reduced the accuracy of statistical models and historical relationships.
However, physical models, like the ones used for day-to-day weather forecasting, can be used as a guide for long-range cyclone predictions.
And the verdict, according to modelling from the world's leading global forecasting agency, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), is a likely range of five to eight named storms this season, compared with a long-term average of 11.
The forecast is created by running the model 51 times from slightly different starting conditions, and the range shown is the average of the results plus or minus one standard deviation.
In other words, about two thirds of the model runs show between five and eight cyclones in the Australian region this season.
But the projected trend in cyclones is not uniform, with the strongest signal for a reduction, at least one standard deviation from the mean, shaded over the Indian Ocean and an area of the central and southern Coral Sea.
Near normal activity is tipped for waters off the NT, Gulf of Carpentaria and near the Queensland coast.
Most Australian cyclones don't reach the coast
While a total of five to eight tropical cyclones may sound alarming, more than half in the BOM's area of responsibility never make landfall or weaken below cyclone strength by the time they do.
Since 1970, on average three to four tropical lows cross the Australian coastline at cyclone strength or above, representing about 30 to 40 per cent of total systems.
However, the proportion of systems crossing the coast varies each year. Of the 11 systems during the 2025/26 season, five reached the coast.
And it only takes one system hitting a community to have serious impacts, so people in cyclone-prone areas should prepare before a cyclone forms and stay up to date with the latest forecasts and warnings. On average, however, the first system to cross the coast does not do so until late December.
It is also worth noting that the five-to-eight range is just a forecast from one model, and the final number of cyclones this season could easily fall outside that range.
How El Niño and climate change affect Australian cyclones
The forecast is consistent with past El Niño events, which since 1970 have produced a lower average of seven or eight cyclones per year, while during the opposite phase La Niña, that number is boosted to 12.
El Niño's influence is due to a combination of cooler waters off Australia's northern coast, along with a decrease in moisture, monsoon strength and convection.
Climate change is another influence on Australian tropical storms, and during the past few decades there has been a clear decline in numbers, but a higher proportion of top-end category 4 or 5 systems.
Since 2000, the annual average number of named storms has fallen to nine, well below the 1970 to 1999 mean of 13.
However, there is evidence that peak cyclone strength is increasing, so while fewer systems are forming, the amount of damage could still increase in a warmer world.
This includes the impact of rising sea levels, which leads to greater storm surge inundation.
