British meteorological experts have warned that this year's El Nino is forecast to be the strongest in more than a century, heightening the risk of drought, heatwaves, heavy rainfall, and other extreme weather phenomena.
In a statement released on Friday, the UK Met Office said that typically El Nino causes sea surface temperatures to rise by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius. However, forecasts for 2026 indicate a record increase exceeding 3 degrees Celsius in the coming months.
“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event,” said Adam Scaife, head of long-range prediction at the Met Office. “I have never seen such a strong El Nino signal in our forecasts.”
If this increase occurs as predicted, “2026 will far surpass what we have experienced with El Nino and its global climate impacts,” Scaife added. The agency's chief forecaster also told the BBC that a 3-degree rise is “unheard of in modern climate data.”
El Nino is triggered by unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, which in turn affects global weather patterns.
Governments worldwide have already faced numerous historic climate events this year. Wildfires have scorched over 200,000 hectares in Indonesia, spread across southwestern Europe, and forced at least 325,000 people to evacuate in Spain and France. Many other countries are struggling with severe drought.
The Met Office stated that El Nino will bring wetter and stormier conditions to northwestern Europe, including the UK, as autumn and winter approach in the Northern Hemisphere. Particularly strong impacts are forecast across the tropics, with very severe drought in South America and the western Pacific.
In mid-August, the UK recorded its hottest day of the year when temperatures in west London reached 38.1 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous high of 38 degrees Celsius in June. Combined with the effects of human-induced climate change, the Met Office warned that this event “very likely” makes 2027 the hottest year on record globally.
