Javier Martín-Vide
Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Barcelona, Director of the Fabra Observatory RACAB
La Niña, which has been weak, has ended, and we are now in a neutral ENSO phase until the start of the northern hemisphere summer. Then, most likely, El Niño will arrive (a warming of the waters of the equatorial Pacific and, progressively, of the coastal Pacific waters off Ecuador, south of Guayaquil, Peru, and north-central Chile; and the retreat of the tropical anticyclone from the South Pacific). Once El Niño is established, it would last for the remainder of 2026. There is, however, a certain probability—not very high, but significant—that El Niño will reach the category of intense or very intense. This is being cautiously announced by the Climate Prediction Center (NCEP/NWS) of the U.S. NOAA. Their predictions are highly reliable.