A new National Weather Service forecast raises the odds that an El Niño—possibly even a rare “super El Niño”—will take hold by mid-2026, with a high likelihood it lasts through the winter and a growing chance of much bigger ocean-driven weather swings.
When the National Weather Service updated its El Niño forecast this week, it wasn’t just fine print for weather watchers. The numbers moved—meaning the calendar that usually ushers in predictable seasonal patterns could instead bring a more chaotic mix of wet, dry, hot, and cold.
In the latest outlook released on Thursday, the odds that El Niño takes hold by July jumped to 82%, up from 61% in the previous update. Even more striking: the forecast puts the chance of El Niño lasting through winter at 96%, a level that essentially reads as a near certainty.
What’s less settled is what kind of El Niño shows up. The forecast now raises the odds of a rare “super El Niño” occurring between November 2026 and January 2027 to 37%, up from 25% last month.
Only four “super El Niño” events have happened since 1950. But the forecast suggests the probability of another—one that could turbocharge Pacific hurricane activity and reshape winter weather across the United States—has climbed.
The science behind the swing
Under normal conditions, Pacific trade winds blow west across the equator, pushing warm water toward Asia. Cold water then “upwells” from deeper layers to replace the warm surface water that’s been moved away.
El Niño disrupts that routine.. It begins when the trade winds weaken. allowing the warm pool of water to flow back toward the west coast of the Americas.. That shift forces changes in the Pacific jet stream—a high-altitude air current described as a 7. 000-mile “conveyor belt”—which helps steer storms east across the Pacific toward North America.
The result is a global ripple effect in weather patterns.
La Niña, the opposite phase, features stronger trade winds, colder water, and a jet stream that moves north rather than south.
These phases typically cycle every two to seven years, lasting nine to 12 months. El Niño generally occurs more often than La Niña.
How strong could 2026’s event become?
Meteorologists gauge El Niño strength by how much sea surface temperatures rise above average in the equatorial Pacific.. The threshold for a weak El Niño is 0.5 degrees Celsius.. Right now. temperatures sit just below that mark. but the NWS expects warming into weak El Niño territory sometime next month.
A key clue in the forecast: the conditions are increasingly favoring an El Niño as a “vast pool of warm water” has built up in the depths of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.
To qualify as a “super” or “very strong” El Niño, the equatorial Pacific would need to heat up by 2 degrees Celsius—something that remains less common.
Some “typically reliable computer models show this year’s potential ‘super El Niño’ could even be the strongest on record,” CNN reports.
If it happens in 2026, it would be the first “super El Niño” since 2015-2016, which NOAA says was among the strongest on record. Other past events occurred in 1997-1998, 1982-1983, and 1972-1973.
What a supercharged El Niño could do to weather
Even with decades of research, the exact outcome in any one winter is never guaranteed. The 2015-2016 “super El Niño,” for example, didn’t bring the wetter-than-average winter that southern California is often associated with during these events.
Still, some signals are more predictable.
NOAA has already said it’s “very likely” that 2026 will be one of the five hottest years on record—before even factoring in El Niño’s added warming. A “super El Niño” could push 2026 or 2027 into the warmest-year category, displacing 2024.
Hurricane patterns are another area where El Niño can steer outcomes. Stronger El Niños tend to suppress storms in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic while amplifying them in the central and eastern Pacific. That opens the door to additional tropical threats for Hawaii and the Southwest U.S.
Beyond storms. the same ocean-driven shift can bring competing extremes: winter often turns warmer across the northern half of North America. while the southern half tends to run cooler and wetter—especially across the Southeast and along the Gulf Coast.. Elsewhere, drought could affect parts of the Caribbean, while India and Southeast Asia might see fewer summer monsoons.
NOAA’s Michelle L’Heureux put the uncertainty into plain terms: “stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely.” She added that “there is still enough uncertainty that seeing a weaker outcome would not be a surprise.”
Where things stand now
As of Thursday’s NWS update, the main takeaway is clear: El Niño is now highly likely to arrive and persist through winter, while the chance of it becoming “super” has climbed to 37% for late 2026 into early 2027.
For planners. residents. and anyone trying to read the next seasonal forecast with confidence. the message is both urgent and modest at the same time.. The ocean and atmosphere are aligning toward a disruptive event—but what exact form it takes next winter remains a question the weather service and researchers will keep watching closely.
El Niño super El Niño National Weather Service forecast NOAA 2026 winter weather hurricane activity Pacific jet stream climate cycle drought monsoons