New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- The strengthening El Nino weather pattern has matched the highest intensity recorded on a widely used measure, with its effects already being felt across parts of Central America and Indonesia.

Zeke Hausfather, a climatologist at Berkeley Earth and co-author of United Nations climate change reports, said the sea surface temperature anomaly in the tropical Pacific had reached 3.07C. That matches the level recorded during the 2015-2016 El Nino.

Hausfather said September was also likely to become the month with the highest anomaly on record, unless there was an unexpected change during the final week.

His figures, published through the Climate Brink dashboard, use sea surface temperature data from the National Ocean...