Observed ENSO state, multi-model seasonal forecasts, the imprint of ENSO, the Indian Ocean Dipole and the tropical Atlantic on African rainfall and temperature, country-level outlooks and the global heat context. All statistics are computed from public observational datasets, with significance testing.
Latest weekly OISST anomaly on the ENSO scale; marker: highest ONI on record
ONI (bars) and weekly Niño 3.4 (line), °C
ERA5 daily, °C above 1850-1900: current year, record year and the 1991-2020 range
GHCN_CAMS, °C vs 1991-2020: monthly anomaly and 12-month running mean
Status and latest period of every source used on this page
Weekly and monthly state of the tropical Pacific, the full ONI record since 1950 and the other ocean drivers that matter for Africa.
Sea surface temperature anomalies (°C, 1991-2020 base), last 104 weeks
ERSSTv5, monthly anomaly vs 1991-2020; boxes: Niño 3.4, Indian Ocean Dipole poles, Atlantic Niño (ATL3), Tropical North Atlantic
Red: warmer than normal, blue: cooler. A warm Niño 3.4 box signals El Niño; a warm western and cool eastern Indian Ocean box pair signals a positive IOD, which drives wet short rains in East Africa.
3-month running mean of ERSSTv5 Niño 3.4 anomalies; relative ONI (RONI) as a line
CPC definition: at least 5 consecutive overlapping seasons with ONI ≥ +0.5 °C or ≤ -0.5 °C
Strength by peak |ONI|: weak 0.5-0.9, moderate 1.0-1.4, strong 1.5-1.9, very strong ≥ 2.0 °C.
Monthly anomalies (°C), last 10 years, ERSSTv5
DMI: west (50-70°E, 10°S-10°N) minus south-east (90-110°E, 10°S-0) Indian Ocean. ATL3: 20°W-0, 3°S-3°N. TNA: 57.5-15°W, 5.5-23.5°N.
Copernicus C3S multi-system forecasts of Niño 3.4 and of African rainfall for the coming six months.
Where and when ENSO, the IOD and the tropical Atlantic shape African rainfall and temperature. Correlations and composites are computed on linearly detrended seasonal series; dots mark cells that pass a false discovery rate test.
Country-mean series, detrended; bars with a solid outline are significant at 5 % (two-sided t-test). Click a bar to open the country in the explorer.
Correlation between the selected driver and seasonal rainfall (or temperature) of each IPCC AR6 region, for all 12 overlapping 3-month seasons. Cells marked with a dot are significant at 5 %.
For any African country or IPCC AR6 region: seasonal cycle, ENSO-coloured history, sensitivity to Niño 3.4, lagged predictability and the historical odds of a dry or wet season under El Niño and La Niña.
Driver 3-month mean centred L months before the centre of the target season (L = 0: same season), detrended series
Dashed lines: 5 % significance threshold. A significant correlation at lag 3-6 means the driver observed today carries predictive information for this season.
Frequency of below-normal, near-normal and above-normal seasons (terciles of the detrended record)
Probability of a below-normal (dry) or above-normal (wet) season in each country, combining the forecast ENSO probabilities with each country's historical response (Mason and Goddard 2001 approach).
Climatological odds are 33 %. Warm colours: higher chance than normal. Countries without a significant ENSO signal stay close to 33 %.
IPCC AR6 regions, next forecast seasons
How did each African country and region fare during the past strong El Niño events (NDJ ONI ≥ 1.5 °C)? Each season is compared with ENSO-neutral seasons after removing the long-term trend, event by event.
November-January ONI of each strong event and state of the current event
ENSO impacts on African rainfall are not stationary: they change from one decade to another with the background state of the oceans and the interactions between the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian basins. Sliding-window and before/after 2000 correlations, El Niño odds by period, and what the ENSO state observed in May-June or September says for the following seasons. West Africa is split into the Guinea Coast and the western and central Sahel.
El Niño developed in boreal spring 2026, so part of its impact should already be visible during the West African monsoon. State of the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Mediterranean indices this season, how the Atlantic may counteract the Pacific, and rainfall expected from ENSO alone and from ENSO with the Atlantic, compared with observations when available.
Daily global temperature from ERA5, the ENSO contribution to year-to-year swings, a projection of the current year and the delayed warming of Africa after El Niño.
ERA5, °C above 1850-1900 (pre-industrial), each line a year
ERA5 annual means, °C above 1850-1900; current year: projection with 90 % range
GHCN_CAMS, area-weighted over African land, °C vs 1991-2020, 12-month running mean
Correlation of detrended monthly temperature with the ONI L months earlier
Regions more likely to be wetter or drier than normal during an El Niño, month by month from June of the onset year (Year 0) to June of the following year (Year +1).
Key terms used on this dashboard.
Everything on this page is reproducible with the open pipeline update_data.py.