NOAA confirms warm El Niño; super forecast by 2026

super El – NOAA says Earth has entered the warm El Niño phase, and forecasters now put a 63% chance on a “very strong”—or “super”—event by this winter, with scientists warning that a stronger El Niño could disrupt health, food systems, storms, and infrastructure while pi

For months the Pacific has been warming in a way scientists watch like a heartbeat. On June 11, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that Earth has officially entered the “warm” El Niño phase—part of a roughly two- to seven-year ocean-climate pattern called the El Niño Southern Oscillation. or ENSO.

By itself, El Niño is an old global disruptor. But this year’s forecasts carry a sharper edge: by the end of 2026. scientists say it might become the strongest El Niño on record. And forecasters currently put the odds at 63 percent that by the winter. this event will become a “very strong” El Niño. sometimes called a “super El Niño.”.

An El Niño phase is defined by months of warmer than normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Unlike a neutral ENSO phase—or La Niña—El Niño shifts heat and moisture in ways that ripple across the atmosphere. The “Southern Oscillation” part refers to a seesaw between high and low atmospheric pressure zones over the eastern and western Pacific. That pressure swing changes global circulation, air temperature, and precipitation.

Scientists track these pressure changes at two main weather stations: Darwin, Australia, and French Polynesia’s Tahiti. During neutral and La Niña periods. the high-pressure zone sits in the east. so prevailing winds blow westward across the equatorial Pacific. Those winds push warm surface waters away from the Americas. allowing cold. nutrient-rich water to well up from the deep ocean—keeping the eastern equatorial Pacific cold.

But every few years, the pattern flips. High pressure moves over the western Pacific and low pressure over the eastern Pacific. That weakens or reverses the prevailing winds. letting warm surface waters stay in place and suppressing the upwelling of cold water. Sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific warm rapidly, signaling the onset of an El Niño phase.

No two El Niños are exactly alike. according to Tom Di Liberto. a climate scientist with the nonprofit climate news organization Climate Central who is based in Washington. D.C. What they share is a transfer of a huge amount of heat from the tropical Pacific to the atmosphere. That burst of heat can dramatically raise global temperatures during the event.

What would make this year “super” is straightforward, even if the impacts aren’t. An El Niño phase officially starts when sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are persistently at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average for several months. Stronger El Niños mean stronger impacts likely to follow. Waters warmer than 2 degrees C above average are the threshold for the onset of a very strong. “super” El Niño.

Since April, researchers have been observing persistently above-average temperatures over the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Dozens of forecasts around the world predicted that El Niño was imminent. By June, as the ocean continued to warm, those forecasts began to predict a strong event.

There’s a complication this year. Climate change has made detecting temperature anomalies that signal El Niño’s onset and strength more difficult. due to uneven warming from region to region. In May. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center adopted a new tool for its El Niño forecast called the Relative Ocean Niño Index. which adjusts for climate change-related warming.

Using that metric, NOAA predicts that this winter sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are 63 percent likely to be more than 2 degrees Celsius higher than average—signaling the onset of a super El Niño.

The reason scientists sound the alarm isn’t just about numbers on a chart. Di Liberto points to climate simulations forecasting “shockingly high” global temperatures for November and December. That heat can have deadly consequences. driven not only by heat-related illnesses. but also by upticks in pest-borne diseases such as cholera. typhoid and malaria.

El Niños also change the position of the Pacific jet stream. so some places become drier while others get wetter. For the United States, one of the most significant impacts is on tropical cyclones. In general, El Niño years can mean more numerous and intense cyclones in the Pacific. But changing wind regimes can hamper hurricane formation in the Atlantic.

Even with all that disruption, the clock matters. The life cycle of an El Niño is relatively short: events typically form in the summer, strengthen into the winter, then die out in the spring.

Still, when the strongest El Niños arrive, the mark lasts far beyond the event itself. The most recent strong El Niños happened in 2015–2016, 1997–1998 and 1982–1983. The 1997–98 event was the strongest on record. It raised the average global temperature for that period by 1.5 degrees Celsius and brought devastating extreme weather.

Those included torrential rains and floods in Peru and East Africa that triggered an outbreak of Rift Valley fever. droughts that kicked off deadly wildfires in Southeast Asia. and powerful storms that led to catastrophic flooding and landslides in California. Soaring ocean temperatures also caused bleaching in about 16 percent of the world’s coral reefs.

Strong El Niños hit more than landscapes—they hit economies. Researchers reported in 2023 in Science that global economic losses attributed to the 1997–98 event are estimated to be about $5.7 trillion. The 1982–83 event cost the world an estimated $4.1 billion.

Whether this year’s El Niño reaches super status is not yet certain. But it’s not starting from a clean slate. Because the event is occurring on top of already rapidly warming global temperatures due to human-caused climate change. Di Liberto says its impacts will likely be dramatic even if the event turns out only moderately strong. “It would not take a very strong El Niño to see records broken this year.”.

The sequence is now in motion: NOAA has confirmed the warm El Niño phase on June 11; the forecast points toward winter temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific more than 2 degrees Celsius above average with a 63 percent likelihood; and simulations suggest a heat spike in November and December. In other words. the atmosphere and oceans are already doing what El Niño always does—only with more background warmth behind it.

El Niño ENSO NOAA super El Niño Climate Prediction Center Relative Ocean Niño Index global temperatures tropical cyclones jet stream cholera typhoid malaria Rift Valley fever coral bleaching