{"id":38411,"date":"2026-06-10T15:49:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/38411\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:49:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:49:05","slug":"japan-calls-it-the-dreaded-el-nino-has-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/38411\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Calls It: The Dreaded El Ni\u00f1o Has Arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"

As meteorologists around the world grow increasingly confident that a \u201csuper\u201d El Ni\u00f1o could be just around the corner<\/a>, one weather agency has already made the call.<\/p>\n

In a statement translated by Gizmodo, the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) officially declared the onset<\/a> of El Ni\u00f1o today. The JMA is the first major weather organization to make this call. According to the statement, Japan is bracing for above-normal temperatures across the nation as a result of above-average Pacific sea surface temperatures.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated<\/a> that there is an 82% chance of El Ni\u00f1o emerging in June. The agency should\u00a0release an updated El Ni\u00f1o forecast on Thursday, but according to former NOAA meteorologist Alan Gerard<\/a>, the U.S. is still weeks away from a formal El Ni\u00f1o declaration.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o looking inevitable <\/p>\n

NOAA does not declare<\/a> El Ni\u00f1o until sea surface temperatures in the Ni\u00f1o-3.4 region\u2014the primary part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean used to track El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a\u2014remain or are expected to remain at least 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) above average for five consecutive, overlapping three-month periods.<\/p>\n

Still, the atmosphere is already showing some telltale signs of El Ni\u00f1o, Gerard reports. Three named storms have formed in the eastern Pacific within the last 10 days, marking an early, active start to the basin\u2019s hurricane season.<\/p>\n

The first, Tropical Storm Amanda, took shape<\/a> on June 3 and has since dissipated. Tropical Storm Boris followed on Monday and made landfall<\/a> on the Pacific Coast of Mexico on Tuesday, bringing heavy rain and a risk of flash flooding. Now, the National Hurricane Center is tracking<\/a> Tropical Storm Cristina as it drifts westward just south of the coast of El Salvador, threatening to bring more heavy rainfall, flooding, and mudslides to Central America.<\/p>\n

Elevated storm activity in the Pacific basin is symptomatic of El Ni\u00f1o because above-average sea surface temperatures cause the ocean to offload more heat into the atmosphere, helping storms organize and intensify.<\/p>\n

Other atmospheric signs of El Ni\u00f1o include weakened easterly trade winds, reduced cloudiness and rainfall over Indonesia, and increased cloudiness and rainfall over the central or eastern Pacific basin. According to NOAA\u2019s Monday update, some of these anomalies are taking shape. The agency points to shifts in rainfall and cloudiness consistent with more convection in the central and eastern Pacific and suppressed convection over parts of the western Pacific, which could signal the start of a transition to El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n

Models point to monster El Ni\u00f1o <\/p>\n

In the weeks leading up to summer, model forecasts for El Ni\u00f1o have intensified<\/a>, increasing the likelihood that this El Ni\u00f1o could become the strongest on record. The latest data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts shows<\/a> Pacific sea surface temperatures rising up to 6.8 degrees Fahrenheit (3.8 degrees Celsius) above average by December.<\/p>\n

Such an event would blow past El Ni\u00f1os out of the water, no pun intended. Meteorologists have warned that this could lead to more frequent and intense bouts of extreme weather, record-breaking global temperatures<\/a>, and major food shortages.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still too early to tell exactly how severe this El Ni\u00f1o will be, but the fact that one major weather agency has already made the call suggests others may be close behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As meteorologists around the world grow increasingly confident that a \u201csuper\u201d El Ni\u00f1o could be just around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14323,28011,6328,8,33,139],"class_list":["post-38411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-climate","tag-el-nino","tag-extreme-weather","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-pacific-ocean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}