El Niño forms in Pacific as experts say it will likely turbocharge extreme weather

El Niño, Nature’s chaotic climate agent, has formed in a warmed-up Pacific Ocean and is expected to grow to historic strength, meteorologists announced on Thursday.

Experts said the El Niño, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming from fossil fuel pollution and will probably turbocharge extreme weather across the planet. Meteorologists forecast it will rival – or exceed – a record El Niño that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heatwaves, floods, droughts, tornadoes and wildfires.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) officially confirmed the existence of the El Niño, which is a warming of the Pacific near the equator that affects weather patterns across the globe. Noaa’s announcement said there was a 63% chance that the El Niño will get so intense this late fall and early winter that it “would rank among the largest El Niño events in the historical record going back to 1950”.

The warm, deep waters of an El Niño affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra heat to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world”, said Abby Frazier, a Clark University climate scientist.

She said, especially in the Pacific, “it can get dire very quickly”.

The UN secretary-general, António Guterres. described El Niño as an “urgent climate warning”.

“El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” Guterres said in a video message.

The weather pattern’s effects vary by region. El Niño often dampens – but does not eliminate – Atlantic hurricane season activity, but increases it in the Pacific. So while the US east and Gulf coasts may get a break, Hawaii and other islands are more in danger, Frazier said.

The drought-stricken Middle East could benefit, climate scientists said. Other places are looking at more danger. Parts of western South America – where the first El Niños were noticed decades ago – often get heavy rain and floods, along with an extra warm summer. India faces more intense heatwaves, while drought, wildfires and heat threaten Australia.

North-eastern Africa is probably going to get weather whiplash from intense drought to dangerously heavy rains, said Muhammad Azhar Ehsan, a Columbia University climate scientist and El Niño expert.

In the US, El Niños can cause more intense storms with heavier rainfall in the south, but they also tend to generally benefit the US agriculture industry, said Jon Gottschalck, operational branch chief at Noaas Climate Prediction Center.

Michael Ferrari, meteorologist and head of research at the investment research firm Moby, said conditions for grains and seed, especially soybeans, look favorable in 18 major growing states, but are more mixed when it comes to dairy and cattle.