PARIS, France, June 10, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Europe's Copernicus Climate Change 
Service on Wednesday said that global forecasters were increasingly confident 
that a very strong El Nino warming weather pattern could develop later this 
year.

"From May 1st to June 1st all models effectively shifted upward their 
predictions," the service's director Carlo Buontempo told AFP of the latest 
monthly El Nino forecast.

"The odds are strongly in favour of a moderate to strong, or probably strong 
to record-breaking, event at this stage."

El Nino is a natural climate phenomenon that warms surface temperatures in 
the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes 
in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.

In its latest update, Copernicus said 75 percent of global forecasters that 
contribute to its El Nino outlook were predicting sea temperatures in parts 
of the Pacific could surge 2.5C or more above average by November.

Just three events -- 1982/83, 1997/98 and 2015/16 -- have breached 2C since 
the first major El Nino recorded in the modern era in 1877/78.