PAGASA Issues El Niño Advisory No. 1 as Drought Touches 19 Philippine Provinces

The Philippines formally moved onto an El Niño footing in June, when the state weather service PAGASA issued El Niño Advisory No. 1 — confirmation that the event is established over the Pacific and already leaving its mark on the country's rainfall map.

The advisory, dated 9 June 2026 and signed by PAGASA Administrator Nathaniel T. Servando, is the top rung of the agency's three-step ladder. PAGASA escalates from a Watch, when conditions favour development, to an Alert, when probability runs high, and finally to an Advisory once the event is under way and impacts are expected. The Alert had been hoisted on 22 April 2026, when models gave a 79% probability of El Niño during the June–August season. By May, PAGASA's monitoring showed the relative sea surface temperature anomaly reaching the +0.5°C threshold, and the advisory reports model probabilities above 80% that a full-blown El Niño is "likely to persist until early 2027."

Drought is already on the map

The most sobering content of Advisory No. 1 is not the forecast but the tally of impacts already recorded. As of May 2026, PAGASA counted 19 provinces in meteorological drought, 29 provinces under dry spells, and 4 provinces experiencing dry conditions. That is a substantial footprint for so early in an event — a reflection of rainfall deficits that accumulated even before El Niño formally crossed its thresholds.

Meteorological drought, in PAGASA's usage, describes sustained and significant rainfall shortfall, with dry spells and dry conditions marking progressively less severe deficits. The distinctions matter for local governments, which use the classifications to trigger water management and agricultural interventions.

Not dry everywhere

PAGASA is careful to head off the assumption that El Niño means uniform drought. "El Niño increases the likelihood of below-normal rainfall conditions," the advisory notes, before adding an important caveat: "However, over the western part of the country, above-normal rainfall conditions during the Southwest monsoon season (i.e., Habagat) may also occur."

That seeming paradox is a recurring feature of Philippine El Niño years. The southwest monsoon can be enhanced over western Luzon and the western Visayas even while the country as a whole trends dry, especially when tropical cyclones interact with the monsoon flow. The mechanics of how the event reshapes regional circulation are covered in the science of El Niño.

A regional and global context

The Philippines is one of several Southeast Asian countries now on formal El Niño alert postures. Indonesia's BMKG is forecasting a drier, longer dry season peaking in August, and agencies across the Pacific rim have converged on the same core message: the event is established, strengthening, and likely to persist into early 2027. Internationally, forecasters expect the event to peak late in the year — NOAA's outlook, detailed in NOAA's July diagnostic discussion, puts high odds on a very strong event by the October–December season.

For the Philippines, the operative planning horizon runs through the northeast monsoon and into the 2027 dry months, when the cumulative rainfall deficits of a persistent El Niño historically bite hardest — in reservoir levels, irrigation supply and hydropower.

Monthly advisories from here

With the Advisory state in force, PAGASA shifts to issuing monthly El Niño advisories, each updating the drought and dry-spell tally alongside the seasonal rainfall outlook. Those monthly counts — how many provinces move into or out of drought classification — will be the clearest running indicator of how hard the 2026 event is pressing on the country. Advisory No. 1 sets the baseline: 19 provinces in drought before the event has even approached its peak.