June 2026 He Is on The Way – El-Nino That Is

He Is on The Way – El-Nino That Is

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” was published in 1861 and became an American classic. Revere, and other Sons of Liberty members’ midnight ride from Boston on April 18, 1775, warned the minutemen that “the British were coming.” This heralded the start of the American Revolution.

Today, although the importance may not be quite the same, we have a notable climate event that is shaping up in the Pacific with weather impacts that will occur around the world.

According to a recent Press Release on 2 June 2026 by the World Meteorological Organization [WMO], is the statement by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “The science is clear: El Nino is arriving on our doorstep in the coming months with 90% certainty. The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is. El Nino conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world.” He goes on to say, “The only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis … ending the addiction to fossil fuels, accelerating the shift to renewables …”

These el Nino [little boy] and related la Nina [little girl] events have occurred for many centuries and are not caused by climate change according to NASA Science. But what is different today is that this is/will occur on top of the warming of our atmosphere already, due to the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases [GHG] present. Compare the levels of about 270 ppm of carbon dioxide in the recent past, to 430 ppm today: a 50% increase.

See the vertical bar chart titled “Annual Temperature Anomaly vs 1951 -1980 Average (C)” also from the NASA Science website. The dark horizontal line near the bottom is the average temperature in degrees Celsius for that 30-year period and labeled on left vertical axis as 0.00. The warmer annual temperatures starting just before 1980 [note taller vertical bars]show the average annual atmospheric temperature increase compared with that 30-year average.

These vertical bars are color coded as indicated. Note that the El Nino years [darker vertical bars]show temperatures higher than the year or two before, as well as after, and thus the UN Secretary’s warning. We can expect extreme weather events in the coming year starting in 3rd qtr. 2026 and into 2027 to be stronger than they would have been otherwise.

So, why and what happens during this event. The warmer waters in the western Pacific Ocean are carried to the east by the Pacific Jet Stream. See illustration of the Earth with North America at the center. This image is from NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] National Ocean Service website.

This jet stream moves south and extends further east. The illustration shows areas designated as “warm,” “wet” and “dry” and more. The weather impacts can be expected to cause these areas to have more severe weather events than they would normally have. There are other extreme events globally in el Nino events and Wikipedia has a lot more detail for those interested.

In a positive development in early June 2026 a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s push to dismantle NCAR [National Center for Atmospheric Research]. NCAR was accused of being one of the “largest sources of climate alarmism.”

Note the photo here taken by the author of the NCAR facility designed by I. M. Pei in Boulder, Colorado. It is a world class research institution with about 830 employees focused on studying the Earth’s atmosphere to improve weather prediction. Their website is a treasure of information.

Meanwhile, delayed progress, but definite progress is happening to wind turbine installations off the east coast of the U. S. See the image of the east coast titled “U. S. Offshore Wind.” Three of these projects are complete and four more are under construction. The largest of these projects is number 7 in the graphic, off the coast of Virginia with a capacity of 2,640 MW [megawatts]. [Paul Horn/Inside Climate News, May 21, 2026.]

And then we always have bits and pieces:

• United Kingdom has recorded its hottest ever day in May as temperature hits 34.8°C [about 95°F]. [The Guardian, 25 May 2026.]
• China’s overall R/D spending has now passed that of the U. S. In 2024 China spent $1.03 trillion vs. $1.01 trillion spent by the U. S., according to the March 31 edition of science and technology compiled by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]. For at least a decade China has increased overall research spending by about 10% annually. [Science, 1 April 2026 p. 137].
• Global EV sales reached 1.60 million units in April 2026 [benchmarkminerals.com, 13 May 2026].
• Climate – related relocation is already happening in the U. S. and Worchester, MA is one of the few American cities to describe itself as a climate refuge. [The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, April 13, 2026].
• The Japan Meteorological Agency has produced a new word to describe blistering temperatures above 40°C [104°F] as kokusho-bi, or ‘cruelly hot’. [NonStop LOCAL;Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA].
• California has installed big grid-based storage batteries supplying huge amounts of night-time energy over the past 36 months. These are equivalent to about a dozen new nuclear power plants. [Uncanny Speed, Bill McKibben, May 7, 2026].
• TIME recognizes Sunrun as one of the world’s most impactful companies for making home solar and battery storage affordable and accessible. Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said this is recognition “ for what we are: a powerful contributor, stabilizer, and resource for the grid.” [CleanTechnica 5/27/2026].
• A research paper in the journal EOS concludes that the “Himalayas Are Experiencing an Exceptional Loss of Glacial Mass.” Citation: Pardikar, R. (2022), EOS, 103, https://doi.org/10. 1029/2022EO220081. The authors mapped 14,798 Himalayan glaciers and found that 40% of the glacial area has been lost recently and the loss is ten times faster than loss since the Little Ice Age 400-700 years ago. [See photo of Himalayas taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station in 2017. Credit: NASA].

And, so it goes.

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