WMO puts El Niño persistence through February 2027 at nearly 100 percent

The World Meteorological Organization said on 3 September that El Niño is now almost certain to last through February 2027. Forecasts from its Global Producing Centres put the chance at nearly 100 percent. The agency called that the first time an official El Niño/La Niña update has been this blunt. The reason is agreement across the network, not a change in wording.

Sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific are running far above the long-term mean. The Niño 3.4 index, the usual yardstick, averaged +1.5°C above normal in May to July 2026 and +2.0°C in July. Weekly readings from late July to mid-August sat between about +2.2°C and +2.6°C. Only three other events since 1950 have been classed as very strong. WMO now expects this one to intensify further and peak toward the end of 2026.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres used the phrase supersized. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said communities are already dealing with droughts and floods and should expect those impacts to grow as the event strengthens. Wilfran Moufouma Okia, who heads WMO climate prediction services, told reporters that a strong El Niño usually leaves a temporary pulse in global temperature behind it. "2027 has the potential to be the warmest on record," he said. The hottest year so far is 2024.

The same office has given an 86 percent chance that at least one year between 2026 and 2030 will beat the 2024 mark. The late-2026 peak raises the odds that 2027 is that year. El Niño does not create the same weather in every basin. It tends to dry parts of Australia, Indonesia and southern Africa, soak the west coast of South America, and shift storm tracks over the Pacific and Indian Oceans. India watches it because a strong event can cut monsoon rain and lift heat in the following pre-monsoon months.

WMO was careful on that last point. A very strong El Niño is not a single global script. National meteorological services still have to translate the Pacific signal into local rainfall and temperature odds. The agency said it is increasing early-warning work with UN humanitarian partners so governments can switch crop varieties, pre-position water, and plan power demand before the peak arrives.

Reuters noted crop failures in Central America this year that forecasters already tie to the present event. France recorded its hottest summer in more than a century, according to the environment minister. Those facts sit on top of a planet that has been running hot even in La Niña years. The extra heat in the tropical Pacific is an overlay, not the whole climate system.

The practical calendar is short. If the event peaks in late 2026, the worst drought and flood seasons in the classic El Niño map fall in the next two quarters. Humanitarian agencies plan on that lag. So do grain traders and insurers. Nepal's flood losses and Himalayan hydropower claims are a separate disaster, but they are a reminder that mountain and monsoon systems do not wait for a Pacific index to peak before they fail.

Three prior very strong events give a rough guide and a warning. The 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 episodes each rearranged rainfall and then faded. None of them arrived on a planet that had already spent a decade near or above 1.5°C of warming in individual years. That is the part WMO is trying to get into ministerial inboxes: the baseline has moved, so the same Pacific anomaly now lands on hotter land and wetter air.

Saulo's public line was operational. WMO will keep feeding climate intelligence to disaster managers and to the agriculture, health, energy and water sectors. Guterres's line was political. He said the race is between rising risk and the will to cut emissions and protect people. The forecast itself does not take a side. It says the Pacific is warm, the models agree, and February 2027 is inside the event, not after it.

For India the next checkpoints are the India Meteorological Department's monthly outlooks and the winter rainfall maps for the south. For East Africa they are the short-rains forecasts. For California they are the winter storm track. The WMO number that matters is the near-100 percent persistence through February. Everything else is local translation of that Pacific heat.