Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

Residents clear trash from a flooded alley in Barangay Damayang Lagi, Quezon City, on August 19, 2026. Persistent rain brought by the enhanced southwest monsoon caused water levels in the San Juan River to rise, triggering a relentless cycle of flooding and carrying garbage from nearby areas directly into their neighborhood. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

Article (news)

HABAGAT-FLOODING-QC

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width: 960px; display: block;" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/178839641004720260819-habagat-flooding-tatalong-qc-JC1283.jpg" style="width: 960px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align: left;">Residents clear trash from a flooded alley in Barangay Damayang Lagi, Quezon City, on August 19, 2026. Persistent rain brought by the enhanced southwest monsoon caused water levels in the San Juan River to rise, triggering a relentless cycle of flooding and carrying garbage from nearby areas directly into their neighborhood.<em>&nbsp;Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News&nbsp;</em></span></span></span></div><p>WASHINGTON, United States &mdash; Two powerful hurricanes and a strengthening tropical storm on Wednesday were churning through the Pacific Ocean where waters were being warmed by a historically strong El Ni&ntilde;o climate episode.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/weather-traffic/2026/8/21/what-a-record-breaking-el-nino-could-mean-for-the-world-0917">What a record-breaking El Nino could mean for the world</a></div><p>Furthest west is Hurricane Lowell, followed by Hurricane Karina. Both of the Category 4 storms are anticipated to pass well to the south and to the northeast of Hawaii, respectively, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).</p><p>However, uncertainty remains over their tracks, with the possibility Lowell could pass close to the archipelago&#39;s westernmost islands.</p><p>Hawaii is still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Lala, which brushed past the southern part of the Big Island last month, bringing destructive winds and severe flash floods.</p><p>Lowell and Karina are trailed to the east by Tropical Storm Marie, currently a few hundred miles south of Baja California and &quot;expected to become a hurricane later today,&quot; the NHC said.</p><p>&quot;El Ni&ntilde;o warming sets the stage for these storms, which are fuelled in large part by warm waters -- when the tropical Pacific is warmer than normal we see an increase in strong storms,&quot; Julia Cole, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan, told AFP.</p><p>A train of three cyclones &quot;is definitely rare to see,&quot; she added.</p><p>A similar train of four cyclones happened in 2015, another intense El Ni&ntilde;o year, when Typhoon Kilo, Hurricane Ignacio, Hurricane Jimena and Tropical Depression 14E crossed the Pacific at once.</p><p>&quot;The climate system has significantly warmed over the last 20 years or so,&quot; said Benjamin Kirtman, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami.</p><p>Warm waters provide fuel for storms, and El Ni&ntilde;o&#39;s effect on the atmosphere leaves little vertical wind shear over the Pacific, creating favorable conditions for hurricanes to intensify.</p><p>&quot;There&#39;s no other way to put it -- it is juicy out there right now,&quot; he told AFP.</p><p>What&#39;s more, the sea surface temperature anomaly -- how much warmer the ocean is compared to average -- is already near record high, right in the middle of the Pacific hurricane season, Kirtman explained.</p><div><br></div><div><strong>IMPACTS FELT WORLDWIDE&nbsp;</strong></div><div><br></div><p>This year&#39;s El Ni&ntilde;o has a 69 percent chance of becoming the strongest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and is already unleashing extreme weather across the globe even though it is not expected to peak until October-December.</p><p>Peru, the world&#39;s largest catcher of anchovy, is facing a devastating blow from warming seas that have gutted production, according to industry officials. In Sudan, El Ni&ntilde;o is blamed for delaying crucial rains that have led water levels in the Nile to drop precipitously.</p><p>El Ni&ntilde;o is the warming phase of a natural cycle in the tropical Pacific known as the El Ni&ntilde;o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and comes along every two to seven years.</p><p>It sets in when east-to-west trade winds ease, allowing warm water which normally piles up in the western Pacific Ocean to slide back east and rise to the surface.</p><p>When those warmer-than-average surface temperatures last for a few months, they cause more storms and clouds over the region, which in turn cause ripple effects through the entire global atmosphere: hotter and drier conditions in some places, cooler and wetter in others.</p><p>Climate change increases El Ni&ntilde;o&#39;s impacts. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, so El Ni&ntilde;o-linked rains can turn more extreme. It also dries out soils, deepening drought where El Ni&ntilde;o brings drought.</p><div><br></div><div><strong>&copy; Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><strong><br></strong></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEOS</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z3pzkcdJuYo?&wmode=opaque&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y19WEesgy2k?&wmode=opaque&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JEMCeELVhP4?&wmode=opaque&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br></div>

<p>Two powerful hurricanes and a strengthening tropical storm on Wednesday were churning through the Pacific Ocean where waters were being warmed by a historically strong El Niño climate episode.</p>

Two powerful hurricanes and a strengthening tropical storm on Wednesday were churning through the Pacific Ocean where waters were being warmed by a historically strong El Niño climate episode.

Rare train of Pacific cyclones fueled by historic El Niño

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Rare train of Pacific cyclones fueled by historic El Niño

Issam Ahmed,

Agence France-Presse

Published September 03, 2026 08:49 AM PHT

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Washington

United States

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hurricane

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