A super El Niño is starting to creep into the forecasts again—quietly at first, then with more confidence. In the past month, weather models have begun to show that a very strong El Niño climate phase could develop later this year, potentially the strongest we have ever seen. People have even started tossing around dramatic labels like “super El Niño” or “Godzilla El Niño”.
The phrase sounds like something from a movie, but the mechanism is very real. El Niño is a natural climate pattern that raises temperatures and disrupts weather around the world. It typically begins when the trade winds blowing east to west over the tropical Pacific weaken, which reduces the upwelling of deep cold water and lets warm surface water spread across the central and eastern Pacific. Atmospheric circulation then shifts eastward, rearranging the weather like someone moving furniture in a room you thought you knew.
There are thresholds that make meteorologists sit up. The El Niño starts when sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific reach 0.5°C above the long-term average. If they reach 2°C or more above the long-term average, it’s considered a very strong or “super” El Niño. Peruvian fishers noticed the warming tends to peak in December—so they called it El Niño after the Christ child. Super events have only occurred in 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16, which is partly why this season has people watching so closely.
Right now, the setup looks worrying. A burst of westerly winds in March and early April has been pushing massive amounts of warm water towards the central and eastern Pacific, essentially laying groundwork for a strong or very strong El Niño. Met Office models project the temperature anomaly there will near 2°C by September. A group of models run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) gives a roughly 50 per cent chance of reaching a 2.5°C anomaly by October.
Still, there’s a catch, and it’s the kind you only notice when you’ve watched forecasts strain to catch up with reality. The US National Weather Service has projected a 25 per cent chance of a super El Niño by the end of the year. And if two of the models in the European group that are projecting central Pacific temperature anomalies above 3°C by September turn out to be correct, then this will be the
strongest El Niño ever observed. But signs of a developing El Niño are still faint at this point, and models struggle to make accurate predictions—one reason called the “spring predictability barrier”. Meteorologists will have a better idea of the strength of the coming El Niño in May or June. Somewhere in that wait, a lot of people will keep refreshing their weather apps—probably while it’s cold outside, and maybe the rain smell hangs around the
street after a shower.
So what could happen if it truly ramps up? The changes in atmospheric circulation over the central and eastern Pacific travel through long-distance “teleconnections,” shifting weather patterns far away. Misryoum newsroom reporting and analysis indicates the result can be crop failures, coral bleaching and disease spread, plus billions of pounds in damages. El Niño typically brings more stormy, wet weather to the southern coasts of North and South America, the Horn of Africa and China—raising flood risk. At the same time, hot, dry weather tends to hit Australia and South-East Asia, central and southern Africa, India and the Amazon rainforest, increasing the risk of drought, heatwaves and wildfires.
The details get messy in Europe and the UK, where El Niño can raise chances of hotter summers and colder winters, but can also bring wet, mild winters depending on other climate patterns. And importantly, the damage doesn’t always stop when the peak passes. In the summer following the 1997-98 super El Niño, severe rainfall and flooding in China’s densely populated Yangtze river valley killed 3000 people, destroyed the homes of 15 million and caused $20 billion in economic losses. The “good” news is that fewer hurricanes form off the Caribbean and east coast of the US during El Niño—strong wind shear tends to prevent storms from gradually building into huge hurricanes.
On climate, El Niño is often described like a temporary boost. If climate change is like an incoming tide, El Niño is like a giant wave that temporarily boosts temperatures even more. A strong event could increase global temperatures by 0.2°C. The last time El Niño occurred, in 2024, it brought the hottest year on record, with global temperatures briefly exceeding the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C for the first time. If a super El Niño develops, many think 2027 will set a new record. “Given that we’re already… close to 1.4, it’s quite likely or plausible that 2027 is going to go above the 1.5 threshold,” says Adam Scaife.
One more complicated question is whether super El Niño events will become more common. El Niño temperatures in the central Pacific are getting hotter due to climate change, but so is the long-term average they’re compared to, so we shouldn’t see an increase in the number or strength of El Niño temperature anomalies under this definition. For that reason, the US National Weather Service has begun classifying El Niño by how much warmer the central Pacific is than other parts of the tropics at present, although this new definition has yet to be picked up elsewhere. Misryoum analysis indicates that, while instances of El Niño and La Niña have been more frequent and more extreme over the past 50 to 60 years, scientists remain cautious about claiming climate change is supercharging El Niño.
What’s clearer is the way global warming is worsening impacts. Elevated global temperatures lead to more evaporation from the soil and more moisture held in the atmosphere, amplifying extreme weather like droughts and flooding. “We call it an intensification of the hydrological cycle,” says Tim Stockdale. Because El Niño can cause significant changes in normal precipitation, it can be exacerbated by climate change—meaning the next storm of extremes may not be only about the Pacific anymore, but also about what warmer air can do.
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