According to Postal news, the El Niño phenomenon, linked to the increase in temperatures, will continue at least between March and May, although it may end between April and June, after reaching its peak in December, it was announced on 5 March.

In the regular update on the phenomenon, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) predicted that El Niño, which usually lasts between nine and 12 months and started in mid-2023, will “continue to affect the global climate in the coming months”.

According to the report, there is a 60% probability that these conditions will persist from March to May and an 80% probability that weather conditions will become neutral (seasonally neutral, without the impact of El Niño) from April to June.

The UN agency, based in Geneva, expects that the continuation of El Niño, although weaker, associated with the forecast of unusually high sea surface temperatures in most of the world's oceans, will result in above-normal temperatures in most land areas over the next three months and influence regional precipitation patterns.

Then there is the possibility of La Niña, usually associated with a colder than normal climate, developing later in the year, although the hypotheses "are uncertain" at this stage, he indicated.

In addition to El Niño and La Niña, the WMO also expected positive temperature anomalies in most of the northern hemisphere, except in the extreme southeast of North America, as well as in most of the terrestrial areas of the southern hemisphere.

El Niño, a phenomenon that occurs periodically, but irregularly, at intervals of two to seven years, “has an impact on global temperature especially in the year after its development, in this case in 2024,” said the Secretary General of the WMO, Celeste Saulo, in the report.

“The sea surface temperature in January 2024 was by far the highest ever recorded in January,” warned the Argentine expert.

Saulo recalled that this is not only due to the influence of El Niño but also to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity.

“El Niño contributed to these temperature records, but greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprits,” he said.

The head of the WMO stressed the importance of early warnings to mitigate the impact of El Niño phenomena on world societies and economies, allowing countries to prepare in advance to try to limit damage in climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture, water resources or health.

“The early warnings of extreme weather and weather phenomena associated with El Niño have saved numerous lives,” he said.

According to the WMO, this year's El Niño recorded a peak of about 2°C above the average sea surface temperature between 1991 and 2020 in the tropical, eastern and central Pacific Ocean, which makes it one of the five strongest events in history.