Climate focus: Forecasters predict strongest super El Nino

As a quick refresher, the El Niño phenomenon is caused by unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean which naturally occurs every two to seven years and can cause more rainfall in certain areas or drought in others.

Britain's Met Office national weather forecaster said 2026 is going to be ​renowned for the development of the largest El Niño in living memory and what is probably the largest such event since the 19th century.

The Met Office said 2027 is very likely ‌to replace 2024 as the warmest year on record.

Their latest forecasts showed a more than 3 degrees Celsius rise in equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures later this year. A typical El Niño causes a rise of 1 C to 2 C, with 2 C considered a major event.

China's National Climate Centre said that the formation of a super El Nino could be the strongest ever recorded.

Since the start of the summer, China has already seen the effects of an El Nino, including torrential rain in various regions.

Last week, ​the strongest typhoon to hit China this year, Typhoon Dolphin, unleashed extreme rain across the country's eastern, central and northern regions, far from the coast, after a two-week journey across ​the Pacific Ocean.

Elsewhere, heavy rains linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon caused flooding in Peru this week that disrupted access to the ancient Inca citadel of Machu ⁠Picchu, closed roads due to landslides and flooded homes in the capital Lima.

Residents of Floridia, an Italian town in the Province of Syracuse, Sicily, have been struggling ​to adapt to the extreme heat. Five years ago, Floridia broke a record when it hit 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in August 2021, which turned the Sicilian town into a symbol of Europe's warming climate. This ​year, Reuters Climate Monitor data showed Florida reached 2.8 C above the 1961-1990 average in July. Click here to read about residents' concerns around heat affecting health and local traditions.

In keeping with the theme of extreme heat changing daily life, click here for an insightful read on how Japanese men are turning to hair removal to survive the sweltering heat leading to a surge in business for grooming clinics.

Singapore said in July it was looking to clear two-thirds of the 23-hectare (57-acre) Maju Forest to build more public housing. But the announcement triggered an outcry from residents, leading to more than 49,000 people signing two ​petitions that urged the government to build on brownfield land, such as golf courses and former commercial and institutional sites, and redevelop older public housing estates at higher densities. Click here to read the government’s response and more.

A Russian Emergencies Ministry IL-76P firefighting plane landed in Serbia’s southern city of Nis this week to tackle a wildfire in the Deliblatska Pescara natural protected reserve that has raged for weeks. Serbia also has access to emergency EU help under the bloc's Civil Protection Mechanism, even though the country is not a member of the European Union. The plane's arrival is another sign of Serbia's balancing act between Russia, with which it has historical ties, and the EU, which it hopes to join.