UN warns El Nino could be ‘off the charts’, strongest in decades

El Nino is set to intensify to exceptional levels in the coming months and persist into early 2027, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned, raising the prospect of worsening droughts, floods and extreme heat across the globe.

The United Nations weather agency said on Thursday forecasts show a nearly 100 percent likelihood that El Nino will continue through February, the strongest level of certainty it has ever expressed in an El Nino/La Nina update.

The naturally occurring weather phenomenon warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.

“If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began – so literally off the charts we have used for the past four decades,” WMO chief Celeste Saulo told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland. El Nino will peak towards the end of this year, though its knock-on impacts for the climate will continue well into 2027, said the WMO.

Heat in the oceans releases more slowly into the atmosphere, pushing up global temperatures the following year.

The powerful 2023-24 El Nino contributed to 2024 being the warmest year on record, and “we should not be surprised if this record is broken”, Saulo said.

“El Nino is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat,” the WMO said.

El Nino is a natural phenomenon and is not caused by climate change. But scientists expect it will exacerbate the heat of a planet already warming as a result of burning fossil fuels, while amping up weather extremes.