Climatologist assessed the impact of El Nino on the weather in Moscow this summer

The El Nino phenomenon will not have a significant impact on the weather in Moscow this summer. Irina Zheleznova, a senior researcher at the Department of Meteorology and Climatology at the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University, announced this on Wednesday, May 13.

She noted that the years in which El Nino develops are characterized by higher global air temperatures, and if the forecast is justified, 2026 could be the warmest year in the history of instrumental observations on the planet as a whole.

"But we shouldn't expect a strong influence on the weather in Moscow this summer. Geographically, the area of El Nino's distribution (the equatorial regions in the center and east of the Pacific Ocean) is located far enough from the European territory of Russia, therefore, El Nino does not have a direct impact. It takes several months for a signal from the tropics of the Pacific Ocean to spread over such a distance," Zheleznova told the Moscow City News agency.

According to the meteorologist, some impact for the capital can be expected towards the end of the year, but it is unlikely that it will be noticeable.

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Earlier, on May 11, climate scientists admitted that the Earth could face the most powerful El Nino phenomenon of the 21st century in the coming months, according to the website. kp.ru . We can talk about the so-called super El Nino, which can cause record heat waves, large-scale floods and serious weather anomalies in different regions of the planet.

According to scientists, El Nino is 70 percent likely to return by June and may become one of the most intense meteorological observations in the entire history. It is noted that this phenomenon usually leads to an increase in temperatures in Australia, Africa, India and some parts of Latin America.

In turn, Andrey Kiselyov, a leading researcher at the Main Geophysical Observatory named after A. I. Voeikov, Candidate of Physico-Mathematical Sciences, climatologist, told Moskva 24 that the onset of this phenomenon in the coming months is rather an assumption. However, he noted that a strong El Nino was relatively recent, two years ago, so a repeat is theoretically possible.

On March 23, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recognized the past decade as the warmest in the 176-year history of observations on land and in the ocean. According to the report, 2025 turned out to be cooler than the record hot year of 2024.

Depending on the calculation methodology, experts classify it as the second or third warmest year in history. Experts explain such temperature fluctuations by the transition from the climatic phenomenon El Niño, recorded in early 2024, to La Niña in 2025.