Cook Islands is expected to experience temperatures close to 30 degrees Celsius until April, according to the Meteorological Service.

Meteorological Service director Arona Ngari says temperatures in the Cook Islands are among the highest in recent years.

Ngari attributes this heatwave to the dry south easterlies associated with the El Niño phenomenon and low cloud cover.

He highlighted the rising average maximum temperatures in Rarotonga: 30.05°C in 2021, 29.98°C in 2022, and 30.37°C in 2023.

Ngari added that while the highest recorded temperature was 35.4°C in February 2014, temperatures for 2023 have rocketed over the average.

“The onset of the El Nino has certainly shown its effect with more dry south-easterly trade winds resulting in less convection and reducing the amount of clouds to produce rain.”

Ngari said that Cook Islands is currently getting temperatures close to 30 degrees Celsius and this is expected to continue through the warmer months from January until April.

The Copernicus-Global Climate Highlights report confirms 2023 as the hottest year on record with global temperatures close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit.

It reported that unprecedented global temperatures from June onwards led 2023 becoming the warmest year on record – overtaking 2016, the previous warmest year.

According to the Pacific Regional Climate Centre (Pacific RCC), for the Western Pacific region, which includes the Cook Islands, 2023 was the third warmest year on record.

December 2023 was the warmest December on record, with August, September and October also warmer than their corresponding months in all previous years.

The year 2016 was the hottest year on record for the Western Pacific region.

Some of the highlights from the Copernicus-Global Climate Highlights report include:

• 2023 had a global average temperature of 14.98°C, 0.17°C higher than the previous highest annual value in 2016
• 2023 was 0.60°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average and 1.48°C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level
• It is likely that a 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 will exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level.
• each month from June to December in 2023 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year
• July and August 2023 were the warmest two months on record. Boreal summer (June-August) was also the warmest season on record 
• December 2023 was the warmest December on record globally, with an average temperature of 13.51°C, 0.85°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.78°C above the 1850-1900 level for the month.