WMO reported on 5 November that Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga had water shortages after low rainfall from May to October. The regional outlook issued on 23 October favors more dryness across the western and southwestern Pacific and a wetter equator from Nauru to eastern Kiribati. Observed shortages and forecast rain are different evidence.
WMO reported on 5 November that Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga had reported water shortages linked to persistently low rainfall between May and October. The story pairs that with a regional outlook for November 2026 to January 2027 that favors below-normal rainfall across much of the northwest and southwest Pacific and above-normal rainfall along the equator from Nauru to eastern Kiribati. Two dates matter: the story is from 5 November, but the outlook was issued on 23 October, after the 19th Pacific Islands Climate and Ocean Forum (PICOF-19), held in Port Moresby on 20 and 21 October.
The distinction this post draws is between what has been observed and what is forecast. The shortages are reported conditions. The outlook is a probabilistic guide to the next three months, and it does not apply evenly: part of the Pacific is favored to be drier and part wetter.
| Question | What the record shows | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Are shortages real? | Five countries are named by WMO and the regional statement. Tonga declared drought across its major islands, northern Vanuatu entered a first-stage drought, Fiji warned of intermittent supply, and the Solomon Islands activated a drought plan. | Reported. Most national records are from June to October. |
| Was rainfall low? | Solomon Islands, NIWA and NOAA records flag dry stations and areas, including Palau at 74% of normal for June to August. No May to October totals for the five countries were found. | Partly documented |
| Is the outlook the same everywhere? | No. Dry from Palau to the Marshall Islands and from central and southern Papua New Guinea to southern French Polynesia; wet from Nauru to eastern Kiribati. | Split |
| Is relief in sight? | Below-normal rainfall is favored for November to January in the named dry areas. The outlook does not establish when local water shortages will ease. | Not established |
WMO’s story gives no figures for the shortage sentence. The regional statement it draws on, produced by the WMO Pacific Regional Climate Centre Network and issued on 23 October, says water shortages were recorded across Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga, associated with persistently lower than normal rainfall. The regional statement attributes the impact reports to national weather services, but supplies no country-by-country shortage figures or underlying records. National records we could find are mostly from earlier in the period.
In Tonga, RNZ Pacific reported on 12 October that the Tonga Meteorological Service had declared drought across all its major islands, including Tongatapu, Niuatoputapu, Ha’apai and ‘Eua. It said Niuafo’ou was on a drought warning and Vava’u on a drought alert, and its chief climate officer said warnings would stay in place for the next three months. In Vanuatu, Anadolu reported on 21 July that the meteorological service had declared the first stage of drought for all of Torba province and parts of Sanma, Penama and Malampa, after three months of low rainfall. In Fiji, a ministerial statement issued through the Water Authority of Fiji on 7 August said most of its 44 main operational water sources were yielding less than the volume their treatment plants need to run at normal output, warned of intermittent supply in some areas, and said it expected the driest period between October and December. A Fiji Times report of 10 July said an assessment found 16 percent of water sources at critical levels and 7 percent approaching critical levels; the article does not name the agency or say how many sources were assessed.
In the Solomon Islands, the National Disaster Management Office activated a national response plan for El Niño on 19 June, and the Island Sun reported water rationing in North Malaita communities on 17 June. In Papua New Guinea, the National Weather Service declared El Niño conditions on 16 June and warned of below-average rainfall in the Highlands and southern coastal areas; we found no national water shortage figures for May to October. The WMO story and the regional statement go further than these records and report shortages across all five countries during the May to October review period.
The measured rainfall we found is patchy and mostly predates October. The Solomon Islands Met Service’s July Early Action Rainfall Watch, covering observations to June, lists Taro as “Seriously Dry” continuously for six months, the lowest 10 percent of its record, with Auki, Kirakira and Tingoa also seriously dry over the past month. NIWA’s August Island Climate Update, using data to 11 July, flagged much of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, northern Vanuatu, northern Fiji and northern Tonga among areas “seriously dry or very dry” over the previous 90 days. For May to October as a whole, we did not find rainfall totals or percentiles for any of the five countries.
NOAA’s Pacific climate summary for June to August shows how uneven the Pacific already was. Station totals ran from 74 percent of normal at Airai, Palau, where NOAA lists the driest June to August, to 156 percent at Kwajalein.
| Station (NOAA, June to August 2026) | Total | Percent of normal |
|---|---|---|
| Airai, Palau | 32.82 in | 74% |
| Pago Pago, American Samoa | 14.03 in | 75% |
| Majuro, Marshall Islands | 35.35 in | 104% |
| Guam | 40.23 in | 122% |
| Yap, Micronesia | 51.82 in | 124% |
| Pohnpei, Micronesia | 59.46 in | 130% |
| Chuuk, Micronesia | 56.09 in | 138% |
| Kwajalein, Marshall Islands | 41.83 in | 156% |
These are single stations, not island-wide averages, and the period is June to August, not May to October. They still show that the western Pacific did not dry as one block: Palau and American Samoa were dry while eastern Micronesia and the Marshall Islands were wet.
The PICOF-19 regional statement, issued 23 October, favors below-normal rainfall for November 2026 to January 2027 across much of the northwest Pacific from Palau to the Marshall Islands, and across the southwest Pacific from central and southern Papua New Guinea southeast to southern French Polynesia. It favors above-normal rainfall in the central equatorial Pacific from Nauru to eastern Kiribati, and calls the result a pronounced El Niño-like pattern. In an El Niño the rain-producing tropical convection tends to shift east along the equator, which is the standard explanation for a wetter equator beside drier islands to the west and southwest. The statement gives no probabilities, says forecast confidence varies by region, and says it does not constitute an official outlook for any nation; national meteorological services issue those.
The pattern is not fixed through the season. NIWA’s August bulletin guided above-normal rainfall for eastern Micronesia for August to October, while the November to January outlook has below-normal rainfall from Palau to the Marshall Islands. We do not treat those as a contradiction, because they cover different periods and are different products, but they are a reason to read each outlook for its own months. The statement also favors above-normal air temperatures across most of the western and central tropical Pacific and expects El Niño to persist into March to May 2027. It says there is a high likelihood the 2026 El Niño will exceed all previous events recorded since 1950, without naming the index behind that comparison. We covered the same pattern on the other side of the western Pacific in our Indonesia haze post.
A shortage reflects what has already fallen and what a community can store and move: tanks, reservoirs and pipes as well as rain. The Solomon Islands Met Service says communities that depend on a single source or on rainwater harvesting are the most exposed. An outlook says nothing about those systems. It gives odds for the next three months across a wide area, and a place inside a favored-dry zone can still have a wet month. That is why a downpour on one island is weaker evidence of relief than a season of observations, and why a favored-wet equator does not mean the shortages elsewhere will end.
It does not show that El Niño caused the May to October shortages. The regional statement says only that they were associated with persistently low rainfall. It does not give shortage counts for any country. We found no May to October rainfall totals for the five countries. It does not cover the cyclone outlook, marine heatwaves, sea level or the marine disasters and health impacts the statement also reports. And it does not forecast any country’s rainfall: that is for each national meteorological service.
The WMO story, the Pacific RCC Network news item and the PICOF-19 regional statement are public, as are NOAA’s Pacific climate summary, NIWA’s Island Climate Update and the national agencies’ statements. All are linked below.
Our reading. The water shortages are reported by official sources in five countries, but the best-documented ones are from June to October and we found no rainfall totals for the whole period. The outlook is a split: drier across a long arc of the western and southwestern Pacific, wetter along the equator from Nauru to eastern Kiribati. The next evidence is not a forecast but the observed November to January rainfall in the places it names.