Geneva, Switzerland, April 24 (ANI) — The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Friday that El Nino conditions are likely to develop from as early as May 2026, with potential impacts on global temperatures and rainfall patterns.
El Nino is a periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that typically lasts nine to 12 months, the WMO said. After neutral conditions earlier in the year, climate models are now strongly aligned, giving high confidence in the onset of El Nino and its further intensification in the following months, said Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Chief of Climate Prediction at WMO.
El Nino and La Nina are opposite phases of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the planet’s most powerful climate patterns. These phases reshape global weather, influencing rainfall, drought and extreme events across regions. El Nino typically occurs every two to seven years.
For the May–June–July season, WMO forecasts above-normal land surface temperatures nearly everywhere, with especially strong signals over southern North America, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as Europe and northern Africa. Rainfall predictions show strong regional variations.
Earlier this month, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said India is likely to see a below-normal southwest monsoon this year — the first such forecast in three years. The IMD’s outlook for the June–September seasonal rainfall over the country is most likely to be below normal (95–90 percent of the Long Period Average, LPA). Quantitatively, seasonal rainfall is forecast at 92 percent of the LPA with a model error of ±5 percent. The LPA for 1971–2020 is 87 cm.
The IMD defines normal rainfall as 96–104 percent of the 50-year average of 87 cm for the monsoon season. “It is expected to be 80 percent this year,” M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, said at a press conference.
Ravichandran added that weak La Nina–like conditions are transitioning to neutral over the equatorial Pacific, and the Indian Ocean currently shows neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions. He said positive IOD conditions are expected to develop in the second half of the monsoon period. Latest climate models indicate positive IOD conditions are likely to develop toward the end of the southwest monsoon season.
WMO’s global seasonal climate update for May–June 2026 shows the Nino 3.4 plume indicating a rapid warming trend, and multi-model ensemble forecasts point to a near-global dominance of above-normal land surface temperatures. (ANI)
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