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It feels like Spain's weather has been all over the place since the start of the year. Warm days, cold snaps, storms rolling in one after another and hardly a settled week in sight. Another storm is forecast to sweep through this week, in fact. But there may finally be some light at the end of the tunnel, according to the World Meteorological Organisation, the United Nations' leading authority on global weather and climate.

 

The WMO confirmed this week that La Niña, the climate phenomenon linked to cooler-than-average temperatures across much of the planet, is showing signs of weakening. The organisation puts the probability of it ending and transitioning to a neutral phase at 60% between March and May, rising to 70% between April and June.

 

After that, things could warm up considerably. The WMO says there's a 40% chance that El Niño, La Niña's warmer opposite, could arrive between May and July, bringing with it rising surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific and shifts in atmospheric circulation patterns around the world.

 

The last El Niño, which ran from 2023 into 2024, was one of the strongest ever recorded and contributed significantly to the record global temperatures seen during those years.

 

Before you take your shorts out of moth balls, it's worth stressing that the WMO points out that this natural cycle is playing out against a backdrop of human-driven climate change, with global temperatures continuing to rise year on year and extreme weather events becoming more frequent as a result.

 

So even a shift to more settled conditions won't necessarily mean plain sailing.

 

For now though, with yet another storm on the way, most people in Spain will just be glad to hear that this particular dreary spell might not last too much longer.