What a powerful El Niño could mean for UAE weather into 2027

Abu Dhabi: A strengthening El Niño could bring the UAE a warmer-than-usual winter, an earlier start to the rainy season and periods of heavier rainfall stretching into spring 2027, according to the National Centre of Meteorology.

Dr Mohammed Al Abri, director of the Meteorology Department at the NCM, said studies by the centre indicate that this year’s El Niño is likely to become unusually strong, with the probability of a strong event put at about 70 per cent.

For the UAE, the effects are expected to become more noticeable from autumn and continue through the 2026-27 winter, potentially lingering until April, he said.

That does not mean months of continuous rain. Instead, the NCM expects the possibility of intermittent periods of more significant weather, including episodes of heavy rainfall and an earlier-than-usual beginning to the country’s wetter season.

Temperatures, meanwhile, are expected to be higher overall. Al Abri said some temperature departures could rise to more than 2.7°C above normal, although a warmer seasonal average would not rule out shorter spells of cold weather lasting for several days or even more than a week.

The distinction is important. Seasonal forecasting describes how conditions are likely to average out over weeks or months; it does not mean every day will follow the same pattern. A winter that is warmer overall can still contain sharp cold spells, just as a wetter season can include long dry intervals.

What exactly is El Niño?

El Niño is a naturally recurring warming of surface waters across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It typically develops every two to seven years and can last roughly nine to 12 months.

Its importance lies far beyond the Pacific. The warmer water alters atmospheric circulation, shifting tropical rainfall and influencing jet streams and pressure patterns thousands of kilometres away. Those changes can make some regions wetter, others drier and alter the likelihood of heat, storms and other extremes.

The UAE’s latest seasonal assessment said the sea-surface temperature anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region of the tropical Pacific had reached about 0.5°C, putting conditions into El Niño territory. The NCM continues to monitor the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, through international climate observations and numerical forecasting models.

The centre had already been tracking the transition earlier this year. Its May seasonal outlook said most climate models expected El Niño to emerge by May to July and persist at least through the end of 2026.

Why this El Niño is attracting unusual attention

The event developing in 2026 is not expected to be an ordinary El Niño.

Britain’s Met Office said on August 21 that forecasts point towards the largest El Niño in living memory and probably the strongest since the 19th century.

Its models indicate that tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures could rise by more than 3°C above normal later this year. A typical El Niño produces warming of about 1°C to 2°C in the affected Pacific region.

The Met Office cautions that uncertainty remains over exactly how intense the event will eventually become, but says several forecasting systems are producing exceptionally strong signals.

That strength matters because more intense El Niño events can produce larger disruptions to established atmospheric circulation patterns.

Does El Niño mean more rain in the UAE?

Not automatically.

There is no simple rule that an El Niño produces a particular storm or guarantees a wet winter in the UAE. Its influence is indirect, changing large-scale circulation in ways that can alter the probability of certain weather patterns.

For the UAE this time, NCM studies indicate increased potential for significant rainfall episodes from autumn into winter, including the possibility of an early start to the rainy season, Al Abri said.

The important word is “potential”. Long-range climate models indicate whether rainfall is more likely to be above, near or below average; they cannot months in advance determine which emirate will receive heavy rain on a particular day.

Seasonal forecasts also become less certain the further into the future they look, which is why forecasters continually update them as new ocean and atmospheric data arrive. The Met Office similarly notes that seasonal outlooks should be treated as indicators of increased or reduced risk rather than precise weather forecasts.

A warmer winter can still have cold spells

El Niño is also expected to tilt UAE temperatures higher overall.

Al Abri said temperatures were likely to show a relative increase above their usual levels during the period. But that does not mean the disappearance of winter cold.

Short periods of significantly cooler weather could still occur, including cold spells lasting a week or longer. The difference is that when the entire season is averaged, temperatures are expected to come out higher than normal.

This apparent contradiction, warmer overall, but still capable of cold spells, is one of the reasons seasonal climate forecasts can be misunderstood.

What about cyclones?

Al Abri said the NCM was also watching the possibility of increased cyclone activity in the Indian Ocean as the broader atmospheric pattern changes.

That does not mean a cyclone is forecast to strike the UAE. Tropical cyclone formation and tracks depend on several factors, and any potential threat to the Arabian Peninsula can only be assessed with useful precision much closer to an individual storm’s development.

For the UAE, the more immediate seasonal question is how the changing circulation may influence moisture moving towards the Arabian Peninsula and the frequency of unstable weather systems affecting the region.

El Niño and climate change are not the same thing

A powerful El Niño is also expected to push global temperatures temporarily higher, but scientists emphasise that El Niño and human-driven climate change are different processes.

Greenhouse gases trap additional heat in the climate system over decades. El Niño, by contrast, redistributes heat already stored largely within the ocean, releasing more of it into the atmosphere during the warm phase of the ENSO cycle.

The two can occur together. That means a strong natural El Niño is now developing on top of a planet already substantially warmer because of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Met Office says the scale of the current event makes 2027 very likely to surpass 2024 as the warmest year recorded globally, because the largest global temperature response to El Niño often follows the event’s winter peak.

For the UAE, however, the practical implications will become clearer month by month. The NCM expects El Niño itself to follow its usual cycle towards spring, but Al Abri said its effects on the country could remain evident until around April 2027.