Numbers that leave the old charts behind
The World Meteorological Organization said its new Global Seasonal Climate Update projects that sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific may reach 3.8°C above average between November 2026 and January 2027. The agency calls an El Niño when that anomaly passes 0.5°C. A reading near 3.8°C would put the current event beyond the range of the four decades of records the agency has used to describe past events.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said the current El Niño could be unprecedented in strength and may peak around December, with effects lasting well after the peak.
Drought in some places, floods in others
A very strong El Niño shifts rainfall across whole regions. The outlook points to above-normal rainfall in parts of East Africa, the northwest United States, southern South America, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia and parts of East Asia. Other regions, including parts of southern Africa, Central America and Australia, face a higher chance of drought and heat.
For farmers the timing is awkward. Planting decisions in many of these regions are made in November and December, exactly when the forecast is most extreme. Aid agencies say food stocks are already thin in areas hit by conflict and by earlier failed rains.
Aid groups asked to act before the damage
WMO issued a joint call with the UN humanitarian office for anticipatory action: pre-positioning food and water, expanding early warning systems, and releasing money before a disaster rather than after it. Officials argue that spending ahead of a forecast event costs a fraction of emergency response.
The wider background matters too. The oceans were already unusually warm before this event began, so the natural cycle is running on a hotter baseline. UNEP's Emissions Gap Report, published last month, found the world still short of the cuts needed to hold warming near 1.5°C and warned that overshoot may now be unavoidable.
Politics waiting in Antalya
The warning arrives days before COP31 opens in Antalya, Turkey, on November 9. Negotiators will debate adaptation finance, loss and damage payments and how to account for emissions from land use and food systems. A record El Niño, with its costs visible in real time, gives the adaptation talks a harder edge than usual.
National weather services are being asked to translate the global outlook into local warnings, since a seasonal probability is not a forecast of any single storm or dry spell. The window for preparation, WMO said, is open but will not stay open for long.