Above-normal temperatures for March-May due to El Nino: UN

The warming El Nino weather phenomenon that peaked in December was one of the five strongest ever recorded, the United Nations said Tuesday, predicting that it would produce above-normal temperatures from now to May.

Though El Nino is now gradually weakening, its impact will continue over the coming months by fuelling the heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

Therefore “above normal temperatures are predicted over almost all land areas between March and May”, the WMO said in a quarterly update.

El Nino, the large-scale warming of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, typically has the greatest impact on the global climate in the year after it develops, in this instance 2024.

It is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.

The weather phenomenon occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes typically last nine to 12 months.

Conditions oscillate between El Nino and its generally cooling opposite La Nina, with neutral conditions in between.

Sea temperatures ‘worrying’

“There is about a 60 percent chance of El Nino persisting during March-May and a 80 percent chance of neutral conditions in April to June,” the WMO said.