The weather phenomenon El Niño is forecast to become the strongest since comparable observations began four decades ago, the UN’s climate agency warned on Thursday (September 3, 2026). The organization’s head said the world is in «a danger zone of extreme weather conditions».
El Niño is expected to be «very strong» in the coming months and will almost certainly persist until February, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported. Its director, Celeste Saulo, told journalists in Geneva: «If this trajectory continues, it could turn out to be stronger than any event we have observed since monitoring began».
El Niño will peak later this year, though its climate impacts will extend into 2027, the WMO said. The phenomenon warms surface waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, triggering global shifts in winds, atmospheric pressure, and rainfall. Oceanic heat is released more slowly into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures the year after an El Niño emerges.
A powerful El Niño in 2023–2024 contributed to 2024 becoming the warmest year on record. According to Celeste Saulo, «we should not be surprised if this record is broken». The WMO stated that El Niño «is firmly established and will strengthen into a very strong event in the coming months, with major impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, droughts, and extreme heat».
Path to the danger zone
El Niño is a natural phenomenon and not caused by climate change. However, scientists expect it to amplify the warming of a planet already heating due to the burning of fossil fuels, as well as make extreme weather events even more intense. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: «El Niño is gaining extraordinary strength right before our eyes. Science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and these waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures continue to climb, and the world is in a danger zone of extreme weather conditions».
WMO director Celeste Saulo urged disaster management authorities and climate-sensitive sectors—including agriculture, fisheries, health, energy, and water supply—to prepare for potential impacts. She noted that «this exceptional El Niño… has the potential to deliver a huge blow to communities and economies worldwide». Saulo added: «We are already seeing destruction and devastation from droughts and floods, and we expect these impacts to intensify as El Niño strengthens».
El Niño typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts about nine to twelve months. Conditions oscillate between El Niño and its opposite, La Niña, with neutral periods in between. El Niño can alter weather and climate conditions thousands of kilometers from the tropical Pacific.
Pacific Ocean heats up
Wilfran Moufouma-Okia, head of the climate prediction division at the World Meteorological Organization, said some regions will feel the impacts before the peak, others during or after it. At the same time, the strength of the peak is not an indicator of the severity of the impact. For the September–November period, WMO forecasts indicate an increased likelihood of above-normal temperatures «in almost all land areas».
An index measuring sea surface temperature anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific showed an average of 1.5°C above normal from May to July. Weekly values from late July to mid-August rose to approximately 2.2–2.6°C above average, indicating further strengthening of El Niño.
The WMO classifies El Niño events as weak, moderate, strong, or very strong. The current event is forecast to reach the highest of the four categories. Wilfran Moufouma-Okia noted that the highest category corresponds to sea surface temperature anomalies above +2°C. «This category is open-ended: we know where it starts; we do not know where it ends», he said.
The average forecast points to a peak anomaly of +3.6°C, significantly higher than during the two most recent very strong El Niño events in 1997–1998 and 2015–2016. In some areas, subsurface ocean water temperatures in July and early August were more than 8°C above average. Celeste Saulo called this a massive reservoir of «very warm ocean waters that will fuel the intensity of El Niño».
The UN’s International Organization for Migration on Thursday called for $110 million to protect 4.9 million people from the potentially severe impacts of the phenomenon.
Source: The Hindu
