UN weather agency warns El Niño could raise global temperatures

The World Meteorological Organization said unusually warm waters in the tropical Pacific were driving a developing El Niño, with an 80% chance the pattern would emerge between June and August and a 90% chance it would continue into November or later in 2026. The agency warned that the shift could lift global temperatures and intensify extreme weather over the coming months.

Celeste Saulo, the WMO’s secretary-general, said the world needed to prepare for a potentially strong event that could aggravate drought, heavy rainfall and heatwaves on land and in the ocean. She pointed to the most recent El Niño in 2023-24, which she said was one of the five strongest on record and helped contribute to the record global temperatures seen in 2024.

For the United States and other countries trying to plan ahead, the warning is less about one storm than about a season of compounding risks. El Niño typically lasts nine to 12 months, long enough to shape summer heat, autumn rainfall and the way emergency agencies, farmers, utilities and insurers price risk. The pattern can raise temperatures across the world and alter rainfall in southern parts of South America, the United States, the Horn of Africa and central Asia, creating the kind of patchwork threat that can leave one region facing drought while another faces floods.

That uncertainty is part of the danger. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center has said stronger El Niño events do not guarantee strong impacts, but they do make certain impacts more likely. In practical terms, that means governments and businesses cannot plan on a single outcome. They have to prepare for a range of scenarios, from sharper heatwaves that drive up electricity demand to heavier rains that test drainage systems, crop conditions and disaster budgets.

The WMO had already said in an April 24 update that an El Niño was expected to develop from mid-2026. Its June 2 warning marked a sharper call for readiness, as the agency stressed that the event could influence global temperature and rainfall patterns far beyond the Pacific. António Guterres said El Niño conditions would “pour fuel on the fire” of a warming world and called for stronger climate action, faster renewable energy deployment, protection for vulnerable populations and early warning systems for all.