EXTREME WEATHER WOES: El Niño here until at least February as sea surface temperatures hit record highs

El Niño is triggered by a warming of surface sea temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific beyond certain thresholds and, in a flashing red light, those are off the charts.

If you live in Gauteng or some of South Africa’s other summer-rainfall areas, you could be forgiven for asking: “What El Niño? ”

The rain gauge in this correspondent’s Joburg garden recorded 51.5mm of rain in September – about twice the average for the month.

However, it looks like this could be the deluge before the drought and a reminder that El Niño typically does not unleash its impact on this region – usually in the form of drought – until summer is well under way.

“El Niño is firmly established and strengthening rapidly. WMO [World Meteorological Organization] forecasts indicate a near-100% likelihood that it will persist through February 2027, potentially being one of the strongest since at least 1950,” the WMO said this week in its latest outlook.

“That near-certainty figure isn’t one model. It’s a consensus across thirteen national and international centres – from Washington to Tokyo to London to Pune – built on real-time exchange of ocean buoy, satellite and radiosonde data coordinated by WMO.”

El Niño is triggered by a warming of surface sea temperatures (SSTs) in the central and eastern tropical Pacific beyond certain thresholds, and, in a flashing red light, those are off the charts.

“SSTs in the central and eastern tropical Pacific are forecast to increase to record levels during October-November-December 2026, reflecting the strengthening of the El Niño event,” said the WMO.

The meteorological jargon is “anomalies”, which refer to the divergence between current temperatures and the long-term average.

“For October-November-December, the seasonal average Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature anomaly is forecast to reach approximately +3.7°C, peaking around December. This is the highest since observations began and is stronger than the previous record of +2.6°C in November 2015-January 2016,” said the WMO.

So, the SST anomaly is expected to be more than 1°C greater than the record recorded in the 2015-16 El Niño, which blazed a trail of drought and misery across southern Africa.

It must be stressed that El Niño does not always translate into drought in South Africa and the wider region. The 1997-98 event, for example, did not bring the anticipated dry spells.

We could still dodge this bullet, although the odds appear heavily stacked in favour of an impending drought. The September rains have, at least, added to already excellent soil moisture and dam levels following the rains of El Niño’s opposite phase, La Niña.

Still, alarm bells are ringing as this super El Niño continues to bulk up.