UN weather agency forecasts 'very strong' El Niño persisting through February 2027
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The Facts
- The World Meteorological Organization said on 3 September that El Niño is "firmly established" and will intensify into a very strong event.
- WMO forecasts put the likelihood that El Niño persists through February 2027 at close to 100%.
- The WMO expects the event to peak toward the end of 2026, with climate impacts continuing into 2027.
- WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said the event could be stronger than anything recorded since monitoring began four decades ago.
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the planet is "in uncharted waters" and in the "danger zone of extreme weather."
- The WMO warned that shifting rainfall and temperature patterns raise the risks of floods, drought and extreme heat.
- El Niño is a naturally recurring phenomenon that is not caused by climate change but adds heat on top of human-driven warming.
- Forecasters say the combination of El Niño and global heating could make 2027 the hottest year on record.
- Effects are already being reported, including weakened monsoon rains in India.
- Guterres described the situation as a race between rising risks and commitments to take climate action and protect people.
Context
What is El Niño?
El Niño is a recurring climate pattern in which sea surface temperatures rise in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, altering winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall worldwide infobae,Yahoo!. It typically appears every two to seven years infobae,Kölner Stadt-Anzeig….
How does El Niño affect hurricanes and typhoons?
El Niño tends to favour increased tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific basin and reduced activity in the Atlantic, according to NOAA meteorologist Erica Grow Cei Newsweek. The WMO says a very strong event can drive extreme weather including typhoons Yahoo!.
How does this event compare with past El Niños?
The UK Met Office warned in late August that it expects the most intense El Niño in more than a century Kölner Stadt-Anzeig…. A study in Science found events of the past 40 years were nearly 40% more intense than pre-industrial ones and stronger than any in the preceding 1,000 years SAPO.
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
Left and right largely agree on this one.
- Where Left and Right agree
- A near-certain forecast through February 2027 removes any excuse for being caught off guard; both reads treat unpreparedness before the late-year peak as a failure of choice, not fate.
- Where Left and Right differ in emphasis
- Whether the story is about extra heat stacked on human-driven warming that is already killing people, or about a scheduled hazard that tests whether governments can build working infrastructure on time.
- Why they won’t converge
- The divide is over attribution and duty, not data: one side reads the forecast as evidence that human-driven warming makes adaptation a shared obligation to fund, the other as a recurring hazard testing basic state competence.
How left and right read it
A warning this specific is a chance to protect people before the water rises, and squandering it is a choice. Forecasters put the odds El Niño persists through February 2027 at close to 100%, with the peak late this year and floods, drought and extreme heat following into 2027 — so nobody can plead surprise. This heat lands on top of human-driven warming, which is already killing people. Fund the early warnings and the adaptation now.
“The climate crisis, caused by pollution from fossil fuels, is already supercharging extreme weather and killing people, with the most extreme heatwave ever recorded hitting Europe this summer and leading to at least 35,000 deaths.” — The Guardian
The measure of government here is plain competence — reliable power, water systems, flood defenses — because El Niño recurs naturally rather than being caused by climate change, and forecasters put the odds it persists through February 2027 at close to 100%, peaking late this year. Floods, drought and extreme heat are therefore a scheduling problem, not a shock. So what gets built before the peak?
The receipts — all 100 sources
Wire services (2)
Independent coverage (50)
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