The UN’s weather agency has said that almost all land areas are likely to experience above-normal temperatures over the coming months, caused by a potentially exceptional El Niño warming event.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued a stark warning that El Niño could become the strongest since monitoring began four decades ago – with the possibility of intensifying droughts, floods and extreme weather.
El Niño is a natural climate pattern where the surface waters of the central and eastern Pacific ocean become unusually warm, temporarily altering weather patterns around the world. It is a natural climate phenomenon that has occurred for thousands of years, arising from interactions between the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere. Some of the hottest years on record have occurred during or just after strong El Niño events.
The periodic warming of sea surface temperatures occurs every two to seven years, and normally lasts up to 12 months, often bringing intense rains and droughts across Latin America.
It is a naturally occurring phenomenon and not directly linked to climate change.
The agency said on Thursday its forecasts showed a near 100% likelihood that El Niño would persist into February 2027, driven by exceptionally warm Pacific Ocean temperatures. The WMO added that this is the first time it has expressed such a high degree of certainty.
“If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began. So literally off the charts,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo told reporters at a press conference held in Geneva.
“El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up,” Guterres said.
The Head of Long-Range Forecasting at the UK Met Office, Professor Adam Scaife, said that as a result, next year, 2027, is “very likely” to overtake 2024 as the warmest year ever recorded.
It comes as a newly released report from Met Éireann for this summer shows that it was provisionally the hottest on record.
The national forecaster said: “For the second year in a row, Ireland has experienced what was provisionally the hottest summer since records began in 1900.”
“After extensive analysis of provisional data from Met Éireann stations, the average temperature of 16.28C across the country during the months of June, July and August made it 0.09C warmer than the previous record, only set in 2025, and 2.03C above the long term average for 1961-1990,” it added.
The data also shows that summer 2026 was drier than average. August was also warmer and drier than average, with a mean temperature of 16.27C making it the ninth warmest recorded since 1990.
“Summer 2026 saw high pressure dominating over most of western Europe with the jet stream – a band of high level winds which steers weather systems around the globe – displaced to the north of Ireland through most of the season,” added the forecaster.
“Intense high pressure systems known as heat domes extended north over Ireland on several occasions during the summer months bringing prolonged periods of hot weather.”