The World Meteorological Organization said El Niño will almost certainly persist through February 2027 and strengthen to "very strong," the highest of four tiers, with knock-on climate impacts extending well into 2027. WMO chief Celeste Saulo said on current trajectory the event "may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began," while UN Secretary-General António Guterres said El Niño "is being supersized before our eyes."
The agency put the likelihood of persistence through February at "nearly 100%" and described subsurface ocean temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific as more than 8°C above normal in July and early August. WMO projected peak intensity toward year-end, with the 2023-24 event cited as having driven 2024 to the warmest year on record.
Saulo warned of "a massive blow to communities and economies," flagging risks of drought in the Amazon, Indonesia and Australia, disrupted Indian monsoons and heavier rainfall in East Africa and the southern United States, and called on agriculture, health, energy and water authorities to prepare. WMO and Guterres separately stressed that El Niño is natural but is amplified by warming from fossil-fuel emissions.
The pages did not indicate disagreement among officials on the event's trajectory; however, only the WMO briefing provided the "nearly 100%" persistence figure, while only one filing quantified subsurface ocean anomalies above 8°C.