El Niño will continue to strengthen over the coming months and could reach very strong intensity towards the end of the year. The WMO warns of significant changes in rainfall and temperatures and an increased risk of extremes.
There is a probability of close to 100% that El Niño will persist until February 2027. Illustrative image.The El Niño phenomenon is already established and everything indicates that it still has room to intensify. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has just updated its assessment and anticipates that the event could reach very strong intensity over the coming months, with effects on temperatures and rainfall potentially extending into early 2027.
The signal is particularly strong: the world’s leading climate prediction centres estimate a probability of close to 100% that El Niño will persist until February 2027.
According to the WMO, this is one of the most definitive forecasts issued so far, backed by a high level of agreement between the different models and prediction systems.
The tropical Pacific is getting hotter
The evolution of the ocean explains much of this outlook. Surface waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, precisely the region where El Niño’s characteristic signal develops, are well above normal levels and continue to warm.
The Niño 3.4 index, one of the main indicators used to track the evolution of the phenomenon, recorded an average anomaly of +1.5°C during May-July and reached approximately +2°C in July. But the warming did not stop there.
A very strong El Niño does not mean that every country will experience theOriginal Record.
This archived record authored by ‘Helena Mottram’ at ‘METEORED (Your Weather)’ was recovered from data set:
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