Climate Models Show El Niño Is Rapidly Strengthening

Citing “remarkable agreement” by the models, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the current El Niño will “strengthen rapidly over the coming months, increasing the likelihood of heatwaves, droughts, heavy rainfall and other extreme-weather events in many parts of the world.” The WMO’s latest monthly climate update issued Friday indicates “a rapid development into a strong El …

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Impact Outlook: El Niño 2026–27

El Niño Is Here. Here’s Why That’s a Head Start, Not Just a Headline. The equatorial Pacific Ocean now reflects El Niño conditions. Forecasters expect it to keep building through the rest of 2026, most likely peaking this fall and winter. Unlike the hazards that arrive with little notice, a developing El Niño announces itself …

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What is the Climate Finance Vulnerability Index (CliF-VI)?

By: Amy Campbell, Student Researcher, National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) Adaptation finance is critically underfunded, with existing finance skewed toward mitigation and middle-income markets. Many countries facing the highest climate risk also carry significant debt burdens and have been repeatedly downgraded by credit rating agencies, thereby increasing their cost of capital and pushing adaptation …

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AI for Wildfires and Heatwaves

Image credit: Bellwether LEAP Wallerstein Panel Series: AI + Extreme Weather Preparedness Based on panel presentations and discussions by Ali Ahmadalipour, Elena Xoplaki, Jatan Buch, and Jorge Pérez Aracil. The 2025 wildfire season in the United States is forecasted to be above normal, highlighting the need to leverage emerging technologies for hazard risk mitigation. At …

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Data and AI for Decision-Support and Policy

Image: Whitehall Street Station Flooding LEAP Wallerstein Panel Series: AI + Extreme Weather Preparedness Based on panel presentations and discussions by Dr. Terri Adams-Fuller, Dr. Equisha Glenn, and Dr. Miguel-Ángel Fernández-Torres. Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) offer new avenues to provide data and build decision support tools that can facilitate extreme weather preparedness …

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AI for Early Warning Systems and Anticipatory Action

Source: Google Flood Hub LEAP Wallerstein Panel Series: AI + Extreme Weather Preparedness Based on panel presentations and discussions by Dr. Shruti Nath, Isaac Obai, Dr. Grey Nearing, and Dr. Josh DeVincenzo. Early warning systems and anticipatory action can help to dramatically reduce the negative impacts of extreme weather events on vulnerable populations around the …

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