France, Sept. 3 -- The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the UN body that coordinates weather and climate forecasting, said there was a near 100-percent chance El Nino would persist through February 2027. It is expected to strengthen further before peaking towards the end of this year.

"If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began. So literally off the charts we have used for the past four decades," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo told a press conference in Geneva on Thursday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement released by the WMO: "El Nino is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: The planet is in uncharted waters, and those ...