The United Nations issued a stark warning on Thursday that the current “supersized” El Niño event is forecast to intensify significantly in the coming months, likely triggering severe weather disruptions globally including heat waves, droughts, and floods.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated, “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes,” emphasizing that scientific evidence confirms the planet is navigating uncharted climate territory with rapidly heating waters.
The warning follows an updated outlook released Thursday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialized UN agency. The WMO predicted that the ongoing El Niño will deepen and eventually reach “very strong” status by the end of the year.
El Niño, part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, is driven by shifts in sea surface and atmospheric conditions within the tropical Pacific. This pattern typically disrupts weather systems worldwide, bringing extreme heat, dry conditions, and heavy rainfall to regions thousands of miles from the Pacific.
According to the UN, this year’s event is unfolding under unprecedented circumstances. Ocean temperatures have already been exceptionally warm even prior to the El Niño’s influence, meaning the climate cycle is developing from a hotter-than-normal baseline.
Forecasters reported that sea surface temperatures in the critical tropical Pacific region rose during the summer, climbing from an average of 1.5 to 2.6 degrees Celsius above normal levels.
“We are already seeing the disruption and devastation caused by droughts and floods, and we expect these to worsen as El Niño intensifies,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
While impacts will vary by region, meteorologists anticipate above-normal temperatures across nearly the entire globe. Rainfall patterns will shift accordingly, with some areas facing excessive rain and flooding while others endure drought conditions.
The latest WMO forecast places the likelihood of El Niño persisting through early 2027 at nearly 100%—a level of certainty previously unmatched for any ENSO event. The phenomenon is expected to peak as 2026 concludes.
In response to the growing threat, the World Health Organization has partnered with national weather agencies to launch a campaign aimed at strengthening forecasts and early warning systems to help communities prepare.
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This sounds terrifying. We knew the oceans were warming, but ‘supersized’ is a new level of scary.
I live in California. If droughts worsen, my water bill is going to be brutal. When will they actually do something?
99% certainty through 2027? That’s not a forecast, that’s a sentence. How do we adapt to this?
Amazing how ‘we saw this coming’ is the only consistent message. Why are our leaders still ignoring it?