Forecasters warn a 'super El Niño' may form, raising fears of record heat

In mid-May 2026, weather forecasting agencies said El Niño was strengthening rapidly in the Pacific Ocean and could turn into a "super El Niño", one of the strongest on record. A BBC report on the new analysis, carried by Jagonews24 on 21 May 2026, said this raised fears of record global temperatures, drought, floods, food crises and a major humanitarian disaster in the following year. Scientists quoted in the report warned that 2027 could become the warmest year in the world's recorded history.

The warnings rested on forecasts from three of the world's leading centres: the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). None of them had yet declared that El Niño had begun. What they described in May 2026 was a fast-warming ocean and a set of forecasts that, taken together, pointed to a strong or very strong event by late 2026. Every figure for the months ahead was a forecast, not an observation, and the agencies themselves stressed how much uncertainty remained about the event's peak strength.

According to the report, sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific were rising unusually fast. That week's data showed tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures about 0.5 degrees Celsius above normal, a level regarded as one of the key signs that an El Niño is beginning. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC), in its diagnostic discussion of 14 May 2026, put the latest weekly value of the Niño-3.4 index at +0.4 degrees Celsius, with the westernmost Niño-4 index at +0.5 degrees and the easternmost Niño-1+2 index, off the coast of South America, at +1.0 degree.

El Niño is a natural climate process in which the central and eastern Pacific becomes warmer than normal. The report said it was expected to strengthen further in the coming months and could become "very strong", a so-called "super El Niño", by the northern autumn. NOAA said in its latest forecast that El Niño could formally begin within a month, and the report added that the chance of it becoming strong or very strong during the northern winter had reached two in three.

Meteorologists called the pace of warming over the previous few weeks unusual. NOAA meteorologist Nathaniel Johnson said that if warming continued at the current rate it would be "a rare event", because moving within a single year from the La Niña conditions of the previous winter, El Niño's opposite and cooler phase, to a potentially strong El Niño is very unusual.

Australia's BoM uses somewhat stricter criteria for declaring an El Niño: by its measure, tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures must be at least 0.8 degrees Celsius above average. It also watches for changes in the trade winds over the western Pacific, which show that the warm ocean has begun to affect the atmosphere as well. The report noted that El Niño forecasts made in the northern spring are usually not very reliable, but that this time meteorologists were far more confident than usual.

The ocean beneath the surface told the same story. NOAA's 14 May discussion said the equatorial subsurface temperature index had increased for the sixth month in a row, with widespread, significantly above-average temperatures below the surface across the equatorial Pacific. Westerly wind anomalies, the opposite of the normal east-to-west trade winds, were observed over the western equatorial Pacific near the surface, and rain-producing convection was suppressed around Indonesia. Even so, NOAA judged the coupled ocean and atmosphere system as a whole to be still in ENSO-neutral conditions on that date.

Although El Niño develops across the whole tropical Pacific, forecasters keep a particular eye on a box of ocean known as Niño 3.4. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center describes the area it uses as the east-central equatorial Pacific, between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south and between 170 and 120 degrees west. NOAA declares the onset of an El Niño episode when the three-month average sea surface temperature departure there exceeds 0.5 degrees Celsius. Forecasters then rank an event by how far that three-month average rises above the long-term average; when the rise exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius the event is called strong, and the report noted that this is the range in which the label "super El Niño" is used.

The label itself is informal. In its update of 24 April 2026, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said it does not use the term "super El Niño" because it is not part of standardised operational classifications. NOAA's own measuring stick had also changed shortly before. According to an AFP explainer published by New Age on 2 March 2026, NOAA adopted a new index in February 2026, the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI), which compares how warm or cool the east-central Pacific is with the rest of the tropics, instead of comparing it only with a 30-year average for the same area. Because the oceans have been warming rapidly, NOAA said the old 30-year average can be out of date and called RONI a "clearer, more reliable way" to track El Niño and La Niña in real time.

The report said forecasts from ECMWF, NOAA and the BoM showed broadly similar results. In ECMWF's latest forecast, more than half of the model runs indicated a rise of more than 2.5 degrees Celsius by the northern autumn. Johnson said a rise beyond that would be a "historically strong event". The BoM's forecast also showed a clear chance of a very strong El Niño developing towards the end of 2026. Some forecast data even suggested the rise could exceed 3 degrees Celsius, which would break the highest value on record, 2.7 degrees Celsius, reached in 1877. Scientists cautioned that observing systems were limited in 1877, so the data from that time carry some uncertainty.

NOAA's own published probabilities were more guarded about strength than about occurrence. Its 14 May 2026 discussion said there was "still substantial uncertainty in the peak strength of El Niño, with no strength categorization exceeding a 37% chance", and noted that the strongest events in the historical record had shown significant coupling between ocean and atmosphere through the northern summer, which "remains to be seen" in 2026. It added that stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they only make certain impacts more likely.

The speed of the change shows in NOAA's monthly ENSO diagnostic discussions, issued on the second Thursday of each month. Read in order, they trace a forecast that moved from La Niña to a likely El Niño within five months:

• 8 January 2026: La Niña persisted, with a 75 per cent chance of a transition to ENSO-neutral during January to March 2026; the latest weekly Niño-3.4 value was -0.5 degrees Celsius.
• 12 February 2026: La Niña continued in January; a 50 to 60 per cent chance of El Niño forming in the late summer and beyond was mentioned, with considerable uncertainty. The Niño-3.4 value was -0.9 degrees.
• 12 March 2026: NOAA issued an El Niño Watch alongside its La Niña Advisory, giving a 62 per cent chance that El Niño would emerge in June to August 2026, and a one-in-three chance that it would be "strong" (Niño-3.4 at or above +1.5 degrees) in October to December 2026.
• 9 April 2026: ENSO-neutral conditions had arrived, with a 61 per cent chance of El Niño emerging in May to July; NOAA put the chance of a very strong El Niño, with Niño-3.4 at or above +2.0 degrees, at one in four, depending on westerly wind anomalies continuing through the northern summer.
• 14 May 2026: El Niño was "likely to emerge soon", with an 82 per cent chance in May to July 2026 and a 96 per cent chance of continuing through December 2026 to February 2027.

Throughout these months NOAA pointed to the same driver: a large and growing store of heat below the ocean surface, together with weakening trade winds. In March it said the increasing odds were supported by "the large amount of heat in the subsurface ocean", even though model forecasts are relatively less accurate at that time of year. The Business Standard in Dhaka reported the 14 May figures the following day, quoting the CPC's caution on peak strength.

On 24 April 2026 the WMO said an El Niño event was expected to develop from mid-2026, affecting global temperature and rainfall patterns. Its monthly Global Seasonal Climate Update said sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific were rising rapidly and pointed to a likely return of El Niño conditions as early as May to July 2026. "After a period of neutral conditions at the start of the year, climate models are now strongly aligned, and there is high confidence in the onset of El Niño, followed by further intensification in the months that follow," said Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Chief of Climate Prediction at the WMO. "Models indicate that this may be a strong event, but the so-called spring predictability barrier is a challenge for the certainty of forecasts at this time of year," he said, adding that forecast confidence generally improves after April.

The WMO described El Niño as the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the most powerful climate patterns on Earth. It typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts around nine to twelve months. The agency said there is no evidence that climate change increases the frequency or intensity of El Niño events, but that it can amplify their impacts, because a warmer ocean and atmosphere hold more energy and moisture for heatwaves and heavy rain. For May to July 2026, its seasonal update expected above-normal land temperatures nearly everywhere, with an especially strong signal over southern North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Europe and northern Africa. The WMO said it would issue its next El Niño/La Niña Update in late May 2026.

NOAA's explanation of the mechanism helps make sense of these forecasts. During El Niño, the CPC says, the easterly trade winds weaken across the eastern half of the equatorial Pacific, westerly winds appear at low levels over the western Pacific, and air pressure rises over Indonesia and northern Australia while it falls over the eastern Pacific. Rainfall moves with the warm water: convection is enhanced over the central and eastern Pacific and suppressed over Indonesia and the western Pacific. Because tropical rainfall shifts across about half the circumference of the globe, these changes alter weather patterns far from the Pacific.

Because extra heat builds up at the surface of the eastern Pacific and is released into the atmosphere, El Niño's broadest effect is on the global average temperature. The report said El Niño usually raises it by up to about 0.2 degrees Celsius. NOAA's Nat Johnson put it the same way in the AFP explainer in March 2026: "All else being equal, a typical El Niño event tends to cause a temporary increase in the global mean temperature on the order of 0.1C-0.2C."

Professor Liz Stephens, an expert in climate risk and resilience at the University of Reading in the UK, told the BBC that if this was a very strong El Niño, "we are probably going to see record global temperatures next year". The report noted that the 2023-24 El Niño had been followed by a record warm year, while stressing that every El Niño is different in strength and in how it affects the world's weather.

The background warming made the prospect more serious. The WMO said in April 2026 that 2024 had been the hottest year on record because of the combination of the powerful 2023-24 El Niño and human-induced climate change. In its State of the Global Climate report, described by the BBC on 23 March 2026, the WMO said the last 11 years had been the 11 warmest in records going back to 1850, and that in 2025 global average air temperatures were about 1.43 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. A temporary cooling from La Niña meant 2025 was not quite as hot as 2024, but it was still one of the three warmest years on record. "If we transition to El Niño we will see an increase in global temperature again, and potentially to new records," Dr John Kennedy of the WMO told the BBC at the time.

Scientists also explained why the hottest year would more likely be 2027 than 2026. Tido Semmler, a climate scientist at Ireland's national meteorological service, told AFP in March 2026 that El Niño's impact would be higher in 2027 than in 2026 if it developed in the second half of the year, because "it takes time for the global atmosphere to react to the El Nino". He added that 2026 itself risked being the warmest year on record even without El Niño, because of the global warming trend.

The strongest El Niño in the record, the event of 1877-78, is remembered for its human cost. The report said it lasted about 18 months and brought a catastrophic global climate disaster, with severe drought and famine in Asia, Brazil and Africa and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people, while regions such as Peru suffered severe floods. Historians have linked the 1877-78 El Niño, together with an active Indian Ocean Dipole, to drought and crop failure across India, China, South America and parts of Africa. In British India, the Great Famine of 1876-78 began after an intense drought caused crop failure on the Deccan Plateau and went on to affect an area of about 670,000 square kilometres; estimates of excess deaths in that famine alone range from 5.6 million to 9.6 million.

The last "very strong" El Niño before 2026 was the event of 2015-16. According to the report, the average Niño 3.4 temperature rise over November, December and January was 2.4 degrees Celsius. That event brought drought to Venezuela, Australia and a number of Pacific islands, and more tropical cyclones than normal in the Pacific with fewer than normal in the Atlantic. Earlier still, the 1997-98 El Niño is regarded as one of the strongest in recorded history, with widespread drought, flooding and other disasters around the world.

The most recent El Niño before May 2026 was that of 2023-24. In Bangladesh, according to figures from the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) cited by the Dhaka Tribune on 22 April 2026, that event coincided with prolonged heatwaves that pushed temperatures to between 40 and more than 43 degrees Celsius across 51 of the country's 64 districts.

The report listed the effects El Niño typically has far from the Pacific. Floods are common in northern Peru and southern Ecuador during El Niño, and the risk of flooding can also rise in East Africa, Central Asia and the southern parts of North America. El Niño suppresses Atlantic hurricanes, and meteorologists were already indicating that the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season might be calmer than normal. NOAA's CPC explains the reason: in August to October, El Niño increases upper-level westerly winds, raising vertical wind shear over the tropical North Atlantic and reducing hurricane activity, while lowering it over the eastern tropical North Pacific.

Professor Stephens said that while fewer Atlantic storms might sound good, for Central America it means much less rain and possible drought. The risk of drought and wildfires could also rise in Australia, Indonesia and parts of northern South America, threatening agricultural production and global food stocks. The WMO's April summary drew the same map: El Niño is typically associated with more rain in parts of southern South America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, and with drought over Australia, Indonesia and parts of southern Asia.

How much El Niño would directly affect the United Kingdom's weather was not yet certain, the report said, but climate scientists at the UK Met Office said El Niño years can raise the risk of colder winters there. The Dhaka Tribune's April report, citing forecasters, also described a wider pattern: hotter, drier conditions for Australia and Indonesia with higher wildfire risk, often weaker monsoons for India and southern Africa, above-average rain for East Africa, and drying in the Amazon.

For Bangladesh the most important question was the monsoon. On 30 April 2026 the WMO reported the outlook of the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum, held in Malé, Maldives, which brought together the national meteorological services of nine countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The forum said rainfall was likely to be below normal during the June to September 2026 southwest monsoon across much of South Asia, with the strongest signal over central regions, while a few parts of the north-west, north-east and south were likely to receive normal to above-normal rain. Both daytime maximum and night-time minimum temperatures were expected to be above normal.

The forum said there was strong consensus among experts that El Niño conditions were likely to develop during the 2026 monsoon season, and that the Indian Ocean Dipole, another key climate driver for the region, was expected to move from a neutral to a positive phase. The WMO noted that the southwest monsoon accounts for 75 to 90 per cent of annual rainfall in most parts of South Asia, replenishing rivers, lakes and groundwater used for irrigation and drinking water, and that below-average monsoon rain can trigger food insecurity among vulnerable people.

Bangladeshi scientists said the same in April. "Normal supply of moisture from the sea is disrupted due to El Niño," Md Marufur Rahman, assistant professor in the Department of Disaster Science and Climate Resilience at the University of Dhaka, told the Dhaka Tribune. "As a result, Bangladesh may experience low rainfall, prolonged dry spells, or even drought." Dr Md Rabiul Awal, chairman of the university's Department of Meteorology, said that if El Niño developed before the monsoon it could significantly weaken rainfall: "Weak means there will be much less rainfall than usual, which will have some consequences." The newspaper also cited a 2020 study published by Springer Nature which found that ENSO strongly influences rainfall and temperature in Bangladesh.

Neighbouring India was already under heat stress when the report appeared. On 20 May 2026 the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned of the risk of upcoming "extreme" heat that could be made worse by El Niño, issued heatwave preparedness guidelines, and said "heat waves in India are becoming longer, stronger, and more frequent". The IMD did not link the high temperatures of that week to El Niño, but cited past research showing higher heatwave frequency during El Niño years across northwest and central India. It said the highest maximum temperature recorded on 19 May was 48.2 degrees Celsius at Banda in Uttar Pradesh.

The report warned that the El Niño threat was arriving at a difficult moment for world food supplies. Experts said the ongoing crisis in the Middle East was making the situation more complicated: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz was already disrupting fertiliser supplies and had pushed up fertiliser prices, which could hit farm output in the coming months and raise the risk of lower food supplies and higher prices. Professor Stephens said the number of people already living in poverty was very high, and that if El Niño-driven drought or floods cut crop production, food prices would rise further. "Especially if the crisis in the Middle East continues, we could be facing a potentially major humanitarian disaster this year," she said.

Earlier reporting showed how this was playing out for rice, Asia's staple. A Reuters report published by The Business Standard on 30 April 2026 said rice supply was expected to fall in 2026 as farmers across Asia cut planted area because of fertiliser shortages and soaring fuel costs, with the war having cut fuel and fertiliser flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Southeast Asia's mainly smallholder farmers also faced hotter, drier conditions from El Niño in the second half of the year. "Farmers have already started planting rice in some countries and are using fewer inputs because prices have gone up," said Maximo Torero, chief economist of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "We are going to see a tighter global supply situation in the second half of the year and early next year."

The same report gave some figures. In April the FAO had forecast that world rice output would expand by 2 per cent to a record high in 2025/26. In Thailand, a farmer in Chai Nat province said fertiliser prices had risen to 1,000 to 1,200 baht a bag from 850 baht, forcing her to cut her use by half. In Indonesia, where fertiliser supply was not a constraint, El Niño was expected to curb output, and the statistics bureau estimated that the rice harvest area in March to May would shrink by 10.6 per cent to 3.85 million hectares. The world still held ample rice stocks after years of bumper harvests, with India holding a record 42 million tons, about one-fifth of global stockpiles, according to US Department of Agriculture data cited in the report.

For Bangladesh, a weak monsoon and costlier inputs could arrive in the same season. The Business Standard noted in its report of 15 May 2026 that insufficient monsoon rainfall caused by El Niño profoundly affects the production of rain-fed staple crops in the country.

Photo: NOAA / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Sources: Jagonews24 (citing the BBC), NOAA Climate Prediction Center, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), BBC News, Dhaka Tribune, New Age (AFP), The Business Standard (Reuters), Wikipedia