Record El Niño set to prolong wet UK winter into spring — SkimNews
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- Adam Scaife of the Met Office said the current El Niño — already one of the largest on record and still strengthening — could mean the end of winter and start of spring stay wet and stormy rather than turning cold and dry.
- Scaife's 2006 research with Thomas Toniazzo found that very strong El Niños reverse the usual late-winter pattern, replacing cold easterly winds over the UK with milder, wetter prevailing westerlies.
- The 1997-1998 and 2015-2016 El Niños both produced this mild-and-stormy late-winter signature, with 2015-2016 ranking as one of the UK's mildest and wettest winters on record.
- Prolonged wet weather could saturate soils and raise flood risk, but also refill reservoirs and groundwater after an exceptionally dry summer, Scaife noted.
- The World Meteorological Organisation confirmed the El Niño is still intensifying, is set to be the largest on record, and is likely to peak in November before persisting until at least February 2027.
- Scaife cautioned that only a handful of very strong El Niños exist in the historical record, making it hard to separate a strong-event signal from noise.
- Globally, a stronger El Niño typically intensifies drought in Australia, the Amazon and Indonesia while driving heavy rain across parts of South America, East Africa and the southern US.
Why it matters: A forecast running wet-and-stormy from autumn through spring carries direct flood-planning stakes for UK emergency services and infrastructure, while a dry-summer-replenishing upside matters for water companies and farmers. The Met Office's specific twist — that the largest El Niños flip the usual UK cold-easterly pattern to mild westerlies — is the novel finding from 2006 research now being tested in real time.
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