Prepare for imminent return of El Niño, UN warns
Drive with John Perlman · 2 June 2026 · 8m
Speaker 1: The World Meteorological Organization today has warned that the world must prepare for the imminent Speaker 1: return of El Nino and the fundamental weather extremes that that phenomenon always brings. Temperatures Speaker 1: rise substantially, rainfall diminishes in some places and becomes extreme in others. El Nino, we've Speaker 1: spoken about it before. Time to talk about exactly what the implications might be for Speaker 1: South African For this we joined by Professor William Landmann, who is a meteorologist at Speaker 1: the University of Pretoria. Prof Welcome and thanks so much for giving us your time. Speaker 1: If the WMO is saying El Nino is coming, do we need to accept that Speaker 1: it is or could anything happen that might mitigate this? Good afternoon to you. Speaker 2: And good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about Elminho. Speaker 2: No, when WMO says something, we have to pay attention, of course. Yeah, but the Speaker 2: South African climate community has been watching this event developing, and we've known now for Speaker 2: a few months that there's something happening, and our forecast models are showing that this Speaker 2: is likely to become a very strong event. There's almost a certainty that there's an Speaker 2: alvene, you're coming. Speaker 1: Its consequences presumably they are different depending where you are in the world. If we Speaker 1: look at South Africa specifically, what are the likely effects on us directly? We'll then Speaker 1: look at obviously the implications of perhaps crop failures in other parts of the world, Speaker 1: rising food prices and so on. But directly in terms of climate in Southern Africa, Speaker 1: what miss should we be…
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