Unclear El Niño impact: PAGASA anticipates dry season in February 2026

The warm and dry season may begin in February, but the likelihood of El Niño conditions in 2026 remains unclear, the weather bureau PAGASA said on Monday.

“So sa ngayon po, hindi pa po natin nakikita na malinaw kung magkakaroon po tayo ng El Niño next year,” said Ana Liza Solis of the PAGASA Climate Monitoring and Prediction Section on Bangon Pilipinas Ngayon.

(So, for now, we do not yet clearly see if we will have El Niño next year.) 

“Pero kung sa pagtatapos po nitong La Niña, possible po is around second half or first half po ng February ay magsisimula po ‘yong ating warm and dry season months at kaakibat po niyan is ‘yong ENSO neutral condition na kung saan wala pong El Niño, wala pong La Niña.” 

(But at the end of this La Niña, it's possible that around the second half or the first half of February, our warm and dry season months will begin, and accompanying that is the ENSO neutral condition, which means there is no El Niño and no La Niña.) 

A brief La Niña event, which brings more rainfall, is expected to persist over the country until the first quarter of 2026. 

Meanwhile, the last time that the country experienced the El Niño phenomenon, or having below normal rainfall conditions, was from July 2023 to June 2024. 

More than 4 million people, or some 1 million families in various regions, were affected by the extreme heat brought by El Niño.