U.K. forecasts ‘biggest’ El Nino will smash records, spark hottest year

An El Nino weather event happens when warming sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific trigger worldwide changes in winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall, as well as higher global temperatures overal

Emmanuel Velasquez, head of forecasting and monitoring at the Panama Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, shows a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) map of sea surface temperatures indicating unusually warm waters along the Peruvian coast as El Nino warms the eastern Pacific and disrupts marine food supplies, in Panama City. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

This year's El Nino weather pattern will be the biggest in over a century and could make 2027 the hottest year globally, Britain's national weather agency said on Friday (August 21, 2026).

Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the weather agency, told the BBC: "We are expecting the biggest El Nino for over a century, peaking at something over three degrees - that is unheard of in modern climate records."

This means Pacific water would heat up more than 3 degrees Celsius above the norm in the coming months.

El Nino occurs when water temperatures rise at least 0.5 degrees Celsius, above the baseline. While it is part of a natural cycle, scientists agree climate change increases its impacts.

A record El Nino would be "adding to the stresses of climate change" following a summer of heatwaves across Europe, the Met Office said in a blog.

Temperatures in the Pacific region are currently running about 2.6 degrees Celsius, above a rolling 30-year average, according to the Climate Brink dashboard based on data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The dashboard also aggregates forecasts that put El Nino on course to peak at a 3.9 degrees Celsius, anomaly this November - well above a 3 degrees Celsius anomaly detected in 2015.

"We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event," British scientist Scaife said in a Met Office blog.

If the forecast is accurate, then 2026 "will far exceed our recent experience of El Nino and its worldwide climate influences", said the physicist who specialises in climate modelling.

"I have never seen an El Nino signal this intense in our forecasts," he added, with even a 2C rise considered a "really big event".

El Nino typically results in drier conditions across southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, and northern Brazil, and wetter conditions in the Horn of Africa, the southern United States, Peru and Ecuador.

This year's anomalous warmth will have particularly strong effects throughout the Tropics, Scaife said.

Forecasters "expect really severe droughts in places like South America, and the West Pacific", he added.

El Nino is already causing well below normal rainfall in India, the Met Office said.

The weather event is also expected to prompt "increased rainfall and storminess in the autumn here in the U.K. around November time", Scaife said.

"These are not short-term weather forecasts. We're talking about really long-term, persistent conditions here," he stressed.

A woman plays with her dog at Prospect Park amid a heatwave in New York City, U.S. on July 1, 2026. Tens of millions of Americans sweltered under furnace-like temperatures on July 2 as central and eastern cities hunkered down for a heat wave set to last through the July 4 holiday weekend.

Head of climate prediction services at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Wilfran Moufouma-Okia points on graphs displayed on a computer screen at the WMO headquarters in Geneva, on June 1, 2026. There is an 80% chance of the warming El Nino phenomenon developing between June and August, increasing the risk of extreme weather events, the World Meteorological Organization said on June 2, 2026.

French firefighters and farmers work to extinguish a fire near a farm in Grand-Auverne, as drought worsens in Loire-Atlantique, France, on June 30, 2026. Climate change has driven record-breaking outbreaks of fire in Europe, Africa, Asia and elsewhere this year, with conditions expected to get worse as the northern hemisphere’s summer approaches and El Nino weather patterns kick in, scientists warned.

A police water cannon sprays a cooling mist over passersby in Heroes' Square during a heatwave in Budapest, Hungary on June 30, 2026. All-time temperature records have been broken in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as for the month of June in the U.K. and in Switzerland.

A woman stands in a pile of ice to cool off at The Great American State Fair on the National Mall amid a heatwave in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 1, 2026. Washington, the capital, was forecast to see 100°F temperatures from July 2 through July 4, when it will host a fireworks display on the National Mall that organisers said would be the biggest in history.

View of the San Rafael Reservoir in La Calera, 14 km north-east of Bogota, taken on March 12, 2024. The Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies (Ideam) warned in January 2024 that Colombians would continue to suffer the effects of the El Niño phenomenon until at least April of this year, followed by a neutral phase that would last until June.

A man dives into the water in the Canal Saint-Martin as temperatures rise during a heatwave affecting a large part of the country, in Paris, France on June 22, 2026. High temperatures are expected in the coming days and the drought is expected to last, with no rain forecast following the early heat wave in May and the one that gripped France at the end of June.

More than 1,300 excess deaths were recorded in Europe since June 21, according to the UN health agency, including several small children who died in locked cars and people who drowned as they sought relief from the infernal temperatures in unsupervised swimming spots. A paddleboarder walks toward the water across a nearly dried-up lakebed at Pisztrang Street Beach at Lake Velence in Gardony, Hungary, Tuesday, June 23, 2026.

Spain experienced its deadliest ever June for heat mortality after record-breaking temperatures scorched Europe. A woman with an umbrella walks at Plaza Puerta del Sol during a spring heatwave in Madrid, Spain.

Blistering temperatures and humidity gripped swaths of the United States with the worst yet to come. PJM, the largest U.S. electric grid operator, made a price spikes and warned of massive transmission line congestion as it braced for record-breaking demand driven by a heat wave. Brownsville resident Dana Robles's grandson sits inside their home in Cameron Park, where the electricity bill continues to rise due to extreme summer heat in Brownsville, Texas, in U.S.

An additional one billion people face at least one day of extreme heat stress, compared with the 1970s, showing that heat stress around the world is increasing in frequency, severity and duration, during both the day and night, a study shows. In India the lack of adequate open space, proper housing, cooling measures is forcing people to sleep outside. Residents from a near by slums are seen sleeping on Mumbai's Versova beach to escape intense heat.

A person rests under mist sprayed from a public outdoor sprinkler in the city centre during a heat wave in Vienna, Austria. The recent heatwave that roasted Europe marked Austria's longest-ever in June, with temperatures exceeding previous highs by 1.4°C on average, the national weather agency said on July 1, 2026.

As temperatures continue to soar across India, animals are also feeling the impact of the scorching summer. A monkey drinks water to find relief from the heat, in New Delhi on June 30, 2026.

A total of 2,567 out of 21,472 wards in Kerala have been identified as the most drought-affected, with Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram districts topping the list, according to a recent study. A Cardamom farmer at his drought hit Cardamom plantation at Pullumedu in Idukki.

A man walks near a billboard reading "The heat can kill you even at work. If they make you work in extreme heat, call the toll-free number" during a heatwave, in Rome, Italy on June 30, 2026. Experts say climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

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2027 likely ‘hottest ever’

Since El Nino events drive up the global average temperature, 2027 is now "very likely to replace 2024 as the warmest year on record", said Nick Dunstone, another Met Office scientist.

In 2024, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above the preindustrial period, the limit set by international commitments to curb global warming.

Last year was the third hottest on record.

The British forecast for a very strong El Nino was in line with other forecasts: Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP in January that 2026 could be "another record-breaking year".

Peruvian and Ecuadoran fishermen coined the term El Nino ("the boy" or "the Christ Child") in the 19th century for the arrival of an unusually warm ocean current off the coast that reduced their catch just before Christmas.

This phase of natural climate oscillation between high and low temperatures occurs every two to seven years, according to meteorologists.

There is an opposite cooling pattern called La Nina, and these have alternated in an irregular cycle that has lasted for thousands of years.

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