UN warns of potentially strong El Niño soon ‘arriving on our doorstep’
The United Nations weather agency is urging the planet to prepare for El Niño, a burgeoning weather pattern expected to develop later this year.
What begins as a warming swath of water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific, El Niño shifts global weather patterns in a chain-reaction process. Those cascading atmospheric influences have tangible impacts around the world.
“El Niño is arriving on our doorstep in the coming months with 90% certainty,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in the World Meteorological Organization statement, warning that the climate pattern could mean that weather impacts will “hit even harder, travel even farther.”
For months, numerous climate models have predicted that a particularly strong El Niño could drive global temperatures to new highs and shift patterns of droughts, floods, heat, humidity and sea ice across the planet.
El Niño is the opposite of La Nina. The two make up the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is like a pendulum, swinging back and forth every two to seven years. But there’s concern the upcoming El Niño may be stronger than average, leading to more significant global effects.
“Although some uncertainty remains about El Niño peak strength and timing, most forecast models suggest it will be at least moderate — and possibly strong,” wrote the World Meteorological Organization.
The agency estimates an 80% chance of an El Niño event between June and August, and a 90% chance of it continuing until at least November. U.S. forecasters concur: Meteorologists at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center have issued an El Niño watch, and say there’s a 96% chance of El Niño peaking between December and February.
In its warning, WMO’s Secretary-General Celeste Saulo noted the “need to prepare for a potentially strong El Niño event — which will exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean.”
The WMO noted the chance for “above average temperatures forecast nearly everywhere for June to August.” El Niños tend to raise global temperatures; added atop an already warming planet, there’s a chance that 2027 could be among the hottest years on record.
Apropos to actual weather impacts, there’s good news and bad news depending on where you live.
The warmer Pacific will warm the air above, leading to rising motion. That could cause more Pacific hurricanes. On the flip side, air sinks over the relatively cooler Atlantic, squashing some attempts at tropical development and reducing the number of hurricanes. That’s why El Niño events are correlated with less-severe hurricane seasons in the United States.
Easterly trade winds across the equator, meanwhile, are replaced by bursts of westerly surface winds. Those pile warm waters against the western shores of South America. That suppresses cool ocean upwelling from below, which is needed to bring nutrient-rich waters closer to the surface. That starves baitfish and means poor fish harvests for dependent countries in Central America and the Pacific coast of South America.
Drought, meanwhile, is likely in southern Africa, Australia, India, the Indochina peninsula and Oceania. Southeast Asia, meanwhile, could see above-average rainfall and more flooding.
And stateside, the U.S. is expecting a stronger, straighter west-to-east wintertime jet stream over the southern part of the country. That will mean wetter conditions and more severe weather along the Gulf Coast, but drier and warmer conditions to the north. That could lead to a less intense winter across northern parts of the Lower 48.