A potentially historic El Niño is all but confirmed for 2026, heightening wildfire and other risks across the globe, according to recent reports from the world’s forecasting agencies.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has determined that an El Niño event this year was “virtually certain” based on all seasonal forecast modelling systems. The fluctuating water-temperature climate pattern of the tropical Pacific Ocean is also forecast to reach “unprecedented” intensity, compounding the high likelihood of wildfires in numerous regions worldwide.

Although usually associated with countries close to the Pacific, the impacts of this El Nino are predicted to extend far beyond, including into Europe, with heatwaves and drought more likely.

The last El Niño in 2023-24 was one of the five strongest on record and it played a role in record global temperatures registered in 2024. But no two El Nino events are the same. The full picture is complex and contains many variables as this graphic shows:

Extreme heat is set to build across the tropics and subtropics from September, and is expected to peak between December 2026 and February 2027, persisting into the spring, the agency said in a press release.

“Unusually warm weather is expected to spread across much of the world, with the warmth growing stronger as El Niño intensifies,” according to the release. “The regions most likely to feel this are in North and South America, Central America, Africa, the Euro-Asian continent and Australia.”

At the beginning of June, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization predicted the probability of El Niño through November to be close to or above 90%.

Two weeks later, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service declared it too, noting that in the US an El Nino tends to be stronger in winter months, with warmer than usual winters.

Last week, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology officially declared it. While predicting lower rainfall and higher temperatures over the current southern hemisphere winter the Bureau and other experts are cautious on the fire potential for the next summer.

“Large-scale climate drivers like El Niño can influence broad conditions such as temperature and rainfall, but they do not determine whether fires start or how they behave on the ground. Bushfires remain a complex, localised hazard that depend on whether the right conditions and an ignition coincide,” said CSIRO Principal Research Scientist Dr Andrew Sullivan.

“The relationship between El Niño and bushfire activity is not straightforward. The occurrence of an El Niño event does not translate directly into bushfire occurrence or impacts, and some of Australia’s more severe fire seasons have occurred in non-El Niño years.”