Geneva, April 24 — The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported Friday that El Niño conditions are likely to emerge as early as May 2026, with implications for global temperatures and rainfall patterns.
El Niño is the periodic warming of sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, typically lasting nine to 12 months. After a period of neutral conditions earlier in the year, climate models are now largely consistent in projecting the onset and further strengthening of El Niño in the months ahead, WMO’s Chief of Climate Prediction, Wilfran Moufouma Okia, said.
El Niño and La Niña are opposite phases of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a major driver of global climate variability. These phases alter weather patterns worldwide, affecting rainfall, drought risk and extreme events, and generally recur every two to seven years.
For the May–June–July season, WMO’s global seasonal outlook indicates above-normal land surface temperatures across most of the globe. Signals are particularly strong for southern North America, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as for Europe and northern Africa. Forecasts for rainfall show pronounced regional differences, with some areas likely to see drier conditions and others heavier precipitation depending on local and seasonal dynamics.
In India, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a seasonal outlook for the June–September southwest monsoon that points toward below-normal rainfall — the first such forecast in three years. The IMD’s guidance gives the seasonal total a most likely value of about 92 percent of the Long Period Average (LPA) for 1971–2020, with a model error margin of ±5 percent. The 50-year LPA for the monsoon season is 87 cm, and the IMD classifies “normal” monsoon rainfall as 96–104 percent of that average. At a press briefing, M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, was quoted saying, “It is expected to be 80 percent this year.”
Ravichandran also noted that weak La Niña–like conditions are shifting toward neutral in the equatorial Pacific. The Indian Ocean currently shows a neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), but models suggest a positive IOD may develop in the second half of the monsoon season, potentially influencing late-season rainfall.
WMO’s seasonal update highlights a rapid warming trend in the Niño 3.4 index and multi-model ensembles that favor a near-global dominance of above-normal land surface temperatures in the months ahead.
