El Niño means ‘the little boy’ in Spanish – but this year’s El Niño is anything but small.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said today that a ‘supersized’ El Niño is about to peak, with a ‘nearly 100% chance’ of dragging on until February.

Heatwaves, droughts, floods, among other extreme weather events, will be more common.

‘The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up,’ said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

So, what does this mean for the UK? spoke with four weather experts to find out.

What is El Niño?

Now and then, for reasons scientists still aren’t sure about, air pressure over the Pacific changes, weakening the winds that blow warm water west.

This leaves the Pacific with a blob of warm water that, as it evaporates, causes heated air to float into the skies and form storms, says Aimee Mook, a curator at the National Maritime Museum in London.

‘The warmer atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean can lead to more rainfall in some regions near the Americas and less rainfall in places such as Australia, depending on local weather conditions,’ she adds.

An El Niño happens every two to seven years, lasting for the better part of a year, peaking in December.

El Niño is part of a wider system called El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the see-sawing of the surface temperature of the ocean and the pressure of the air above it.

So what makes this El Niño ‘supersized’?

Scientists measure how strong the phenomenon is by how high sea-surface temperatures are above normal.

This one will be a whopper. A typical El Niño nudges temperatures by 1°C, but some expect this year’s to peak at 3.5°C, Steve Woolnough, a professor of Climate Science at the University of Reading, says.

‘Whatever you call it, that is massively above anything anyone has ever seen or recorded,’ he adds.

‘Because it’s such a large event we have no precedent for what we might expect.’

Ahead of its peak, data shows that three powerful hurricanes – Lowell, Karina and Marie – are currently churning through the Pacific.

Jim NR Dale, founder of the British Weather Services, says the worst of this ‘Godzilla El Niño’ has yet to come.

‘Tropical and sub-tropical regions first,’ he says of the ‘unwinding beast’.

‘Droughts, floods, wildfires, crop devastation, a highly likely numerous and potentially catastrophic death toll, particularly in combination with ongoing and record global warming.’

How will it impact the UK?

As much as El Niño gives the Pacific a fever, it usually has the inverse effect in the UK as the isles are just that bit too far to feel its effects.

‘El Niño is just one of several drivers for European and UK weather, but it does increase the chances of wet and stormy weather in this region in the coming months,’ Met Office spokesman Stephen Dixon says.

Past El Niños also suggest that there will be a cold snap in late winter and into early spring, from January to March.

Supermarket shelves may also be impacted, as Asia and the Indian subcontinent face crop-devouring droughts and wildfires.

I’ve seen some people mention ‘La Niña’. What’s that?

Some forecasters expect that not long after El Niño, a La Niña will unfurl.

La Niña, or ‘little girl’ in Spanish, is the opposite of its sibling weather pattern.

It strengthens the winds, flushing the Pacific of warm water. This, in turn, dries the southern US while soaking Australia and Asia.

Dale, however, says they won’t happen back-to-back.

‘There would be a gap as the Pacific swaps horses,’ he says. ‘We here in the UK remain on the periphery; increased colder spells being the only likely direct effect from La Niña.’

What about climate change?

Scientists aren’t sure how El Niño and La Niña will change, if at all, as the planet warms because of human-caused climate change.

Six of the strongest El Niño events since 1950 have happened in the last 11 years, a stat that some scientists say wouldn’t be possible without humans burning fossil fuels.

Yet they also stress that El Niños are notoriously complex, and it might just be a spell of very bad luck that we’re getting so many revved-up El Niños.

Or, at the least, it will make the extreme weather that climate change is already causing that much worse.

Regardless of the answer, a double-whammy of El Niño and climate change isn’t a good thing.

‘This unique combination, along with the unprecedented direction of the El Niño,’ Dale says, ‘takes the world into unknown territory for the next six months or so.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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