WMO forecasts El Niño to persist until February 2027 — Cyprus Mail

The Cypriot publication Cyprus Mail reported that the World Meteorological Organization forecasts that El Niño will intensify this year. According to the WMO, the phenomenon will peak in December and, with almost 100% probability, persist until February 2027.

Record Pacific Ocean temperatures

The WMO expects sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, a key region for El Niño, to be a record 3.7°C above normal from October through December.

This forecast significantly exceeds the previous record sea surface temperature anomaly of 2.6°C, recorded between November 2015 and January 2016. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said El Niño could potentially become one of the strongest since at least 1950.

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Impact on weather worldwide

El Niño is the warm phase of the natural El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle, which affects weather patterns in different parts of the world. The phenomenon usually contributes to rising global temperatures and disrupts precipitation patterns across large regions, causing drought in some places and heavy rainfall in others.

El Niño usually occurs once every two to seven years. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the average global temperature in August was 16.96°C, tying with July 2023 as the hottest month on record.

Researchers at the University of Chicago's Climate Impact Lab last month forecast that this year's “super El Niño” could lead to up to 451,000 excess deaths worldwide between June and February 2027.