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Science1 distinct publisher3 min readPublished
For the first time, a WMO update on El Nino carries almost no hedge about the tropical Pacific over the next two seasons. The harder question, what any given basin actually gets, sits in a second document.
The Scientist · Science desk
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The physical case is unusually specific for a press release: a July Niño 3.4 mean of +2.0 °C against a +1.5 °C three-month average, weekly values reaching +2.6 °C, subsurface anomalies above 8 °C. Those figures also cohere, since the weekly range sits 0.7 to 1.1 °C above the mean the update cites, which is what intensification looks like in arithmetic. What holds the score down is provenance. Every number reaches us through one science-news relay of one WMO document, the individual Global Producing Centre forecasts behind 'nearly 100%' are not shown, and no independent forecaster appears anywhere in this reporting.
Announced, not yet visible
What exists so far is two documents and an intention. WMO has published the ENSO update and the companion seasonal update, and Saulo says a mobilisation with national met services is under way, described as the largest in the agency's 50 years. No national service, humanitarian operation, utility or agriculture ministry appears in this reporting confirming that it has changed an allocation, a stock position or a deployment on the strength of the forecast. The score reads the paperwork and the announcement, not uptake.
Framing runs ahead of the text
The gap sits inside the same document rather than between rival accounts. WMO says plainly that event strength does not fix severity in any one country, and that Indian and Atlantic Ocean conditions can reinforce, weaken or alter the usual pattern; phys.org still leads with a warmer spring for New Zealand and Australia, a regional call the body never makes. Guterres's supersizing and danger-zone language stretches well past the ocean readings underneath it. The +2.0 to +2.6 °C figures and the persistence odds, by contrast, are stated soberly and are the part of the story that will age well.
Issuer supplies both alarm and remedy
WMO is the sole source of the probability, of the assertion that no update in its 50 years has been this unequivocal, and of the mobilisation that the forecast justifies, with the value of its national-service network stated in the same breath. Guterres attaches the event to the climate-action case he makes routinely. None of this is concealed and sea surface temperatures are not the sort of number an agency can shade much, but the framing, the appeal and the measurements all come from one desk, and phys.org relays them without a counterweight.
Credible physics, thin paper trail
The tropical Pacific is the most heavily instrumented forecast problem in climate science, the quoted values hang together, and a six-month persistence call made in September with the index already above +2 °C is the kind of forecast that usually holds. Against that, one outlet reprinting one release leaves the model spread behind 'nearly 100%' invisible, the subsurface figure unlocated, and the regional question, which is the one most readers actually have, parked in a document our coverage does not open.
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The nearly-100% figure comes from model consensus rather than from counting past events. WMO's Global Producing Centres run seasonal prediction systems, and the update reports close agreement among them alongside mutually reinforcing oceanic and atmospheric signals [2][8]. Counted from the September-to-November season the same update forecasts, that pins roughly six months of tropical Pacific behaviour [17]. That is an unusually firm foundation for a seasonal plan, though it describes sea surface temperatures in one region, not rainfall in any particular place.
The ocean numbers underneath it are moving quickly. The Nino 3.4 index averaged 1.5C above normal across May to July 2026 and reached 2.0C above normal in July, and weekly values between late July and mid-August ran between roughly 2.2C and 2.6C above average [5][6]. Those weekly readings sit 0.7C to 1.1C above the three-month mean [16], the kind of trajectory that supports WMO's expectation of further strengthening before a peak late in 2026 [4]. The subsurface figure is the eye-catching one, more than 8C above average during July and early August, but it comes with a caveat that limits how far it can be pushed: the update says "in some areas" and gives neither the depth nor the extent [7]. It is evidence of a heat reservoir available to feed the surface, not a measure of how much ocean is that warm [8].
Two documents went out. The second is where sector planning actually happens. WMO's own caution is that event strength does not determine severity in any individual country, because effects vary with location and season and can be modified by conditions in the Indian and Atlantic oceans [11], so the complementary Global Seasonal Climate Update folds El Nino together with those other drivers [12]. The publicly reported detail so far is coarse. For September to November 2026, the multi-model forecasts point to an increased likelihood of above-normal temperatures [13], which phys.org rendered as a warmer spring for New Zealand and Australia [14]. That is a tilt in a temperature distribution, some distance from a reservoir inflow forecast or a sowing date.
What the near-certainty leaves open is operational. Reservoir releases, forward grain purchases and the timing of the grid peak all still depend on forecasts that go beyond it. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said El Nino is being "supersized before our eyes" and that the planet is in uncharted waters [15], and WMO's Celeste Saulo called for exceptional preparation and response [9]. The arithmetic in the update stands without that register and stops short of it. What it does support is narrow and worth having: for two seasons the driver can be treated as given, while every basin-level number that follows from it still has to be earned from a regional forecast.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
phys.org headlined its report on the WMO update as El Nino being set to bring a warmer spring to New Zealand and Australia.
According to a new WMO update, El Nino is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, with major impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat.
Forecasts from WMO's Global Producing Centres indicate a nearly 100% likelihood that El Nino will persist through February 2027.
WMO says this is the first time a WMO El Nino/La Nina Update has been so unequivocal, reflecting the strong agreement within WMO's extensive network.
El Nino is expected to strengthen further in the coming months to a very strong intensity before peaking toward the end of 2026, with climate impacts continuing well into 2027.
The Nino 3.4 index of sea surface temperature anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific strengthened from an average of +1.5C above normal during May-July 2026 to +2.0C above normal in July.
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1 article · September 4, 2026