The equatorial Pacific is stirring, and the world is bracing for what could become one of the most powerful El Niño events in modern records. Multiple meteorological centres now project that sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific may exceed 3°C above the long-term average by late 2025, a threshold that, if reached, would rival or surpass the devastating episodes of 1982, 1997 and 2015. The phenomenon, often dubbed a 'super El Niño' by forecasters, is expected to emerge between May and July, intensify through the northern autumn, and persist well into 2026, with cascading effects that could permanently alter the planet’s annual temperature baseline.

Viewed from New Delhi, the stakes are especially acute. India, already emerging from a punishing pre-monsoon heatwave, faces a renewed surge in temperatures after 9 May, with models indicating a weakened and erratic summer monsoon. The risk is not merely agricultural disruption but a public health emergency in a country where hundreds of millions live without reliable cooling. Analysts in London note that the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has been among the most emphatic in predicting an event of historic magnitude, drawing comparisons to the warmest phases of the last 140 years. The organisation’s data feed directly into global climate models that inform disaster preparedness from the Horn of Africa to Southeast Asia.

In Mexico City, the anxiety is compounded by geography. Positioned between two oceans and warming at a rate above the global average, Mexico stands at the confluence of El Niño’s most violent expressions: extreme rainfall in some regions, paralyzing drought in others, and a hurricane season amplified by overheated waters. The context is a world already 1.46°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, meaning that even a moderate El Niño now carries exponential risk. A recent analysis by the National Autonomous University of Mexico warned that the upcoming event could trigger floods and landslides across the Gulf coast while intensifying water shortages in the parched north.

From Washington, the outlook is equally sobering although regionally different. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has confirmed the end of the three-year La Niña phase and the onset of El Niño conditions. For the United States, this typically means a warmer, drier winter across the northern tier and wetter conditions along the southern states, but the intensity of the projected warming could upend even these familiar patterns. What unites these disparate regional forecasts is a single, troubling arithmetic: a super El Niño superimposed on a climate system already loaded with greenhouse gases will almost certainly break the global average temperature record set in 2016, and may do so repeatedly through 2027.

The most significant concern, however, is not the immediate spike but the long aftermath. El Niño’s heat does not dissipate overnight; it lingers in the ocean and atmosphere for years, locking in higher baseline temperatures and making future La Niña events less effective at cooling. Viewed from the perspective of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target, the coming months may represent a point of no return. As one climate scientist put it, the difference between a strong El Niño and a super El Niño in a warmer world is the difference between a record and a new climate regime. The question, increasingly urgent, is how quickly and how effectively nations can adapt to a state that may have no precedent in human experience.