Topic
Forecasting of weather and climate patterns weeks to months ahead, covering El Niño, rainfall and temperature anomalies using models and historical data.
NOAA's Boyin Huang and colleagues put the 1877/78 El Niño at 2.88C above average in the Nino3 index, among the strongest in modern history. New Scientist traces an estimated 20 million to 30 million famine deaths in India, China and Brazil between 1876 and 1879 to that event.
Reality
World Meteorological Organization forecasts put El Niño's peak around December and give it a near-100% chance of lasting through February 2027. Its maps tilt regional odds toward heat, drought or flood, and WMO says they do not replace local forecasts.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Researchers writing in Earth's Future found that extreme March-May heat in the Amazon follows El Niño and tropical Atlantic warmth by up to seven months. That could give fire and water managers months of notice, based on a statistical record spanning 74 years.
Reality
The eastern Pacific is running 2.1 C above average on weekly NOAA data, past the 2 C mark for a super event. The official strength category comes from three-month averages, and the regional outlook comes with a caveat attached.
Reality
The probability describes a ranking of Pacific ocean temperature, and the December peak it points to arrives for Southeast Asian governments that have already been drawing down reserves to cover energy and fertilizer.
Reality
A Harvard and University of Ghana team detrended two decades of district production records and found that heavy April-June rain matters about as much as dry-season drought, with both extremes tied to large-scale climate patterns.
Reality
Woods Hole researchers pushed the record of Indian-Pacific coupling back to the early 1600s using corals, tree rings and stalagmites. Only one earlier interval, 1810 to 1850, shows the relationship breaking down.
Reality
A Science Advances study ties winter pollution across northern India to how often Mediterranean storm systems arrive. The storm count is itself linked to ocean temperature patterns visible the previous autumn.
Reality
The team that traced Morocco's record wet winter to a weakened Azores-Iceland pressure gradient says the Pacific will not settle what happens next, even with NOAA giving better than 90 percent odds on a very strong El Nino.
Reality
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.
Reality
The Met Office expects the tropical Pacific above 3C in November, and one aggregated forecast says 3.9C. The global temperature consequence lands in 2027, which is still a planning cycle away.
Reality