Overview
- NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center now puts the chance of El Niño forming by July at about 82% with persistence into the Northern Hemisphere winter.
- Recent model runs show a large pool of subsurface heat and an April wind reversal that sent a downwelling Kelvin wave east, rapidly warming the eastern Pacific.
- The World Meteorological Organization and other forecasters see a strong or very strong event as possible, yet the wind–ocean feedback needed to lock in high intensity has not clearly taken hold.
- India faces elevated risk as the IMD projects a below‑normal southwest monsoon and an ICAR study links past El Niño years to more than 10% yield drops in paddy and maize across many districts.
- Risk is shifting rather than disappearing in the Americas, with experts noting fewer Atlantic hurricanes on average but unchanged landfall danger and NOAA warning of a “double whammy” of more frequent high‑tide flooding due to El Niño on top of sea‑level rise.