El Niño is strengthening, with a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2026-27, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said on Thursday.

“During the October-December 2026 season, there is a 69% chance of a historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El events dating back to 1950,” the weather forecaster added.

El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon in which weakening trade winds cause warmer ocean waters to accumulate in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.

This typically leads to higher global temperatures and altered weather patterns, bringing drought to some regions and heavy rainfall to others.

Coupled with man-made climate change, it adds to the risk of extreme weather.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency on Monday said there was a 100% chance that the El Niño phenomenon will continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter and into early 2027.

A powerful El Niño weather event could push nearly 49 million more people into acute food insecurity across some of the world’s most vulnerable regions by the end of next year, the World Food Programme said earlier this month.

Donald Keeney, agricultural meteorologist at Vaisala Weather in Finland, said confidence was low. Still, the body’s forecasters expected El Niño to peak near the end of this year, then subside “later in the winter and next spring.”

(Reporting by Noel John in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis)