{"id":224405,"date":"2026-09-16T16:24:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/el-nino-is-surging-months-of-extreme-heat-could-follow-un-news\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:24:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:24:52","slug":"el-nino-is-surging-months-of-extreme-heat-could-follow-un-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/el-nino-is-surging-months-of-extreme-heat-could-follow-un-news\/","title":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o is surging. Months of extreme heat could follow – UN News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fuelled by exceptionally warm Pacific waters, the El Ni\u00f1o climate pattern<\/a> is intensifying and has yet to peak. Forecasters are almost certain it will persist through February 2027 \u2013 with unusually warm conditions expected across much of the world in the coming months.
El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> is strengthening rapidly in the Pacific Ocean, raising the prospect of months of extreme heat, floods, drought, and disruptive weather around the globe<\/strong>.
The phenomenon, already firmly established, is expected to become \u201cvery strong\u201d and peak around the end of the year, according to new forecasts from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)<\/a>.
The likelihood that El Ni\u00f1o will persist through February 2027 is now close to 100 per cent. Never before has the UN weather agency issued such an unequivocal forecast for El Ni\u00f1o or its cooler counterpart, La Ni\u00f1a<\/a>.
And beneath the surface of the tropical Pacific lies another cause for concern. An enormous reservoir of unusually warm water that could continue feeding El Ni\u00f1o in the months ahead.
In some parts of the Pacific, subsurface temperatures in July and early August were more than eight degrees Celsius (around 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal.
The combination points toward an unusually powerful climate event unfolding on a planet already significantly warmer because of greenhouse gas emissions.
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is being supersized before our eyes<\/strong>,\u201d UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/a> said in a press release on Thursday. \u201cThe science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.\u201d
El Ni\u00f1o is a naturally occurring climate pattern that typically develops every two to seven years, when waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific become unusually warm. That warming can alter atmospheric circulation thousands of miles away, shifting rainfall and temperature patterns everywhere. 
But this El Ni\u00f1o is developing against an unusual backdrop. The oceans are already exceptionally warm, providing a hotter baseline on which the natural climate cycle is playing out.
Scientists have not established that man-made climate change is increasing or intensifying El Ni\u00f1o<\/strong>. But a warmer atmosphere and ocean can amplify some of its consequences, increasing the heat and moisture available to fuel extreme weather.
The latest measurements show how quickly the current event is developing. 
The Ni\u00f1o 3.4 index<\/a>, a closely watched measure of ocean temperatures in the central tropical Pacific, averaged 1.5\u00b0C above normal from May through July. By July, it had reached 2\u00b0C, and weekly readings from late July through mid-August climbed as high as 2.6 degrees.
The heat extends well below the surface \u2013 a sign that the warming is not fleeting and that El Ni\u00f1o has considerable fuel left.
A very strong El Ni\u00f1o does not mean that every region will experience disasters of the same magnitude.
From September through November, however, forecasters expect above-normal temperatures across nearly the entire Earth\u2019s surface.
Rainfall patterns are also taking on the characteristic signature of El Ni\u00f1o, with greater chances of heavy rain and flooding in some places and drought in others.
Other forces could complicate that picture. A positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole \u2013 another large-scale shift in ocean temperatures \u2013 is expected to develop, while the tropical Atlantic is forecast to remain unusually warm.
Those overlapping patterns make it impossible to translate the strength of El Ni\u00f1o into a precise forecast for any individual country. But collectively, the signals point toward a period of heightened risk.
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o means \u2018little boy\u2019 in Spanish, but it has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies around the world<\/strong>,\u201d Celeste Saulo, head of WMO<\/a>, said. \u201cWe are already seeing the disruption and devastation caused by droughts and floods, and we expect these impacts to worsen as El Ni\u00f1o intensifies.\u201d
The forecast has prompted an unusual response. It\u2019s the first time ever WHO<\/a> has launched a mobilisation of this scale with national weather agencies<\/strong>, seeking to strengthen forecasts and early-warning systems as the risks mount.
The effort is intended to help governments and humanitarian organizations prepare for the effects on particularly vulnerable sectors, including agriculture, public health, energy and water supplies.
\u201cThis exceptional El Ni\u00f1o demands exceptional preparedness and response<\/strong>,\u201d Ms. Saulo said.
That underscores how much of this El Ni\u00f1o still lies ahead. The phenomenon is already exceptionally strong, and it has yet to peak.
The question is no longer whether El Ni\u00f1o will strengthen, but how much heat \u2013 and disruption \u2013 it will leave behind.
Record heat waves, deadly flooding and extreme weather reflect an ever-warming planet poised to soon breach safe temperature limits, according to a UN report released on Tuesday, but doubling down on climate action now could avoid a climate catastrophe.<\/span>
Nearly 50 million more people in highly vulnerable communities globally are set to be pushed into acute hunger because of the strengthening El Ni\u00f1o weather phenomenon, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday.<\/span>
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Facebook Twitter Print Email Fuelled by exceptionally warm Pacific waters, the El Ni\u00f1o climate pattern is intensifying and has yet to peak. Forecasters are almost certain it will persist through February 2027 \u2013 with unusually warm conditions expected across much of the world in the coming months.El Ni\u00f1o is strengthening rapidly in the Pacific Ocean, raising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}