The United Nations has warned that the expected return of El Niño should not be brushed off, saying the climate pattern could significantly affect weather conditions around the world.
El Niño happens when surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific become warmer than usual. It typically appears every two to seven years and often lasts around nine to 12 months.
Because it can disrupt global weather systems, El Niño is associated with more frequent and more intense extremes — and those impacts can be amplified by ongoing climate change. The most recent event was in 2023-2024.
Even though the phenomenon itself is well known, forecasters have cautioned that the approaching cycle could be the most powerful in at least ten years, according to National Geographic.
Assessments reported in April indicated the developing El Niño had a 25 percent likelihood of becoming “very strong,” alongside a 50 percent chance of reaching “strong” intensity.
To track how an event is developing, researchers focus on four main indicators: ocean surface temperature, atmospheric pressure patterns, wind behaviour, and rainfall across the equatorial Pacific.
On June 2, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) — a UN agency — released an update on the situation and urged the public to take the warnings seriously.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said, per The Guardian, that the world ‘must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is’.
He continued: “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed.”
According to the WMO, there is an 80 percent chance El Niño will form before September, rising to 90 percent before November.
If it develops as expected, another cycle could potentially be back as soon as next year.
Forecasters expect unusually high temperatures across much of the world over the next three months, alongside an elevated risk of both heavy rainfall and drought.
Increased rainfall is anticipated in parts of South America, the southern US, the Horn of Africa, and central Asia. Meanwhile, drier conditions are often seen in Central America, northern South America, the Caribbean, Australia, Indonesia, and parts of south Asia.
Although talk of a possible “Super El Niño” has grown, the WMO has stressed that the projections still vary significantly between forecasting models.
Celeste Saulo, the secretary general of the WMO, said: “The spread is large. There are models that are not providing any indication of a strong El Niño, while others are doing so.”
For now, it’s a case of watching the indicators closely and waiting to see how the pattern develops.