WMO: El Niño Could Be 'Off the Charts,' Nearly Certain to Persist Through February 2027

The World Meteorological Organization said the strengthening El Niño is set to intensify to 'very strong' levels in the coming months and warned it could exceed anything in the agency's 50-year monitoring history. Niño 3.4 sea-surface anomalies climbed from +1.5°C (May-July) to +2.0°C (July) and reached +2.2-2.6°C above average from late July through mid-August, with subsurface Pacific temperatures over 8°C above normal in parts of the basin. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said that 'if this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began — literally off the charts,' warning the event 'has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world' and that 'never before in the 50-year history of the World Meteorological Organization have we launched such a major mobilization... we have no time to lose.' WMO put the probability of El Niño persisting through February 2027 at nearly 100% — its most definitive ENSO certainty ever issued — with roughly 100% odds of El Niño conditions continuing through November 2026 and near-zero odds of a return to neutral or La Niña. UN Secretary-General António Guterres separately said El Niño is 'being supersized before our eyes,' calling current conditions 'uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up,' while the World Food Programme projected the event could push approximately 49 million additional people into acute hunger.