Is a 'Super El Niño' on the way and how will it affect the UK?

Climate scientists are predicting a change in weather patterns around the globe later this year due to an expected El Niño event.

Global temperatures in 2026 and into 2027 could be boosted by around 0.2C if a strong El Niño does develop.

Whilst the impacts of El Niño vary significantly in different parts of the world and at different times of year, there are some links to the weather in the UK, including a higher chance of a colder spell during the winter months.

El Niño and La Niña are naturally occurring warm and cool phases of a climate pattern in the tropical Pacific known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO cycle.

La Niña - the cooler phase of the ENSO cycle - is still weakly present in the Pacific Ocean, and has largely been in charge since December 2024. This has led to a temporary lowering of global temperatures, meaning 2025 was a slightly cooler year than 2024 - the world's hottest year on record.

However, things are about to change, as according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), this current La Niña "is close to its end".

Climate scientists from the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are forecasting a "transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral" conditions in the next month, lasting through until early in the northern hemisphere summer.

Then later in the summer - between June to August - there is a 62% chance that El Niño will emerge "and persist through at least the end of 2026".

Whilst most climate prediction models favour the development of El Niño later this year, there remains a lot of uncertainty about how strong it might be and hence how much the world's climate and weather patterns could be affected.

There are hints that this upcoming El Niño could become a "strong" event - referred to by some sources as a "Super El Niño". The US Climate Prediction Center defines a strong El Niño as sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific +1.5C above the long term average, and it suggests a one in three chance of that happening between October and December this year.

Strong El Niño events are relatively rare. Though we saw a few months of a strong El Niño in late 2023, the most recent sustained period was during 2015-16. This episode fuelled 2016 to be the hottest year on record at that time (overtaken now by 2023, 2024 and 2025) as well as seeing multiple other records broken, external. Global sea levels continued to rise, and Arctic sea ice extent was well below average.

No two El Niño events are the same, but certain weather patterns are more or less likely when El Niño develops.

The most obvious impacts are usually found in places closest to the unusually warm Pacific waters. Countries in the west Pacific, such as Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines, tend to be drier than normal. Drought and forest fires can be major problems here.

On the other side of the Pacific, countries in South America such as Peru and Ecuador can see much wetter weather, leading to devastating floods.

But El Niño can have much further reaching implications too, and can be associated with a weaker monsoon in India and flooding winter rainfall in the south-west US.

For the UK, ENSO impacts tend to be less discernible, and can often lag behind the actual event. Whilst higher temperatures can be more likely during summer, the impact on the UK's weather may be stronger during the later winter months.

Climate scientists at the Met Office state "El Niño years are one factor that can increase the risk of colder winters in the UK".

Scientists are continuing to study how global warming affects the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, and the link is not clear-cut. However some evidence suggests that both strong El Niño and La Niña events may be increasing in frequency and strength, external.

According to the Climate Prediction Center, "This amplified cycle translates into more extreme and frequent ENSO-linked droughts, floods, heat waves, wildfires and severe storms."

The ENSO cycle can bring short-term fluctuations in global temperatures, and historically La Niña years have been cooler than El Niño years. However, due to the background warming around the globe, a La Niña year now is warmer than an El Niño year just a few decades ago.