The 2026-27 El Niño is simply astonishing. Tropical Pacific waters are running nearly 7 weeks ahead of where they’ve ever been at this point in an El Niño cycle in modern history. Models now put the peak strength at 3.6°C on the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI), the new standard for measuring El Niño that adjusts for background ocean warming from climate change.
That would beat the previous record (Dec. 1877, the strongest El Niño ever observed) by 0.7°C. In the context of climate, that’s completely blowing the previous record out of the water.
For context, an El Niño is informally considered a Super El Niño when, for 3 months, the Niño 3.4 index is 2.0°C or above. Frankly, expect extreme climate and weather impacts over the next 12-18 months. Forecasts have also been consistently, aggressively wet for California and the southern US. Many of California’s largest floods have hit during El Niño years, and in very strong events, El Niño typically becomes the single best predictor of a very wet winter in California. It also elevates the odds of a megaflood in the state.
@Weather_West’s (Climate scientist Daniel Swain) research found 7 of 8 modeled ARkStorms occurred during moderate-to-strong El Niño years.
The bigger picture: 2027 could be the first year Earth briefly touches 2°C above preindustrial levels. With each successive model update, the forecasted strength of El Niño is increasing, with ensembles now putting a 94% chance on a Super El Niño this winter. Virtually certain.
I’ve posted this video several times, but always worth reviewing.
I spoke to Kevin Trenberth in 2015, in the midst of the previous very large El Niño, and he described how these events tend to bump the whole planet into new heat regime, like moving up a staircase, something that is now abundantly clear in the modern temperature record. I think I have it set to start at the right moment, but if not, discussion starts at 1:17.
An intensifying El Nino, nature’s heat-releasing thermostat that spikes global temperatures, is heading to historically strong levels, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.
In its monthly update, NOAA said this year’s El Nino, a natural warming of the equatorial Pacific that alters weather patterns across the globe, has an 81% chance of becoming “very strong” — the top category available — by fall. It should rank among the most intense El Ninos since the weather agency started tracking them in 1950.
Its biggest impacts — from droughts to downpours to heat waves — are likely to be most felt in the fall and winter, meteorologists said.
This El Nino, which formed only last month, already zipped past the weak stage and is now considered moderate with no indications of slowing its strengthening, the government forecast said. Ocean temperatures in key parts of the Pacific that help indicate the El Nino’s strength are at or near record highs for this time of year, partly because it comes on top of ocean warming from human-caused climate change, meteorologists said.
“It’s pretty extreme,” said Emily Becker, a University of Miami scientist who works with the NOAA El Nino forecast team. “Not unprecedented, but very unusual.”
Becker said it will rival the 1997-1998 El Nino, while other meteorologists predict this one could be even stronger. The World Bank said the El Nino that started in 1997 led to 23,000 deaths in weather disasters, increased poverty rates in some countries and cost governments as much as $45 billion.
“This is not a run-of-the-mill El Nino,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Not only is it already breaking records for the time of year, but unlike past super El Ninos, it is on top of considerable background warming from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. “We might not expect to see the exact same impacts from this event as we have seen in historical ones.”
A very strong El Nino — based on ocean temperatures in parts of the Pacific — does not translate to even more intense extreme weather, but makes those conditions more likely, Becker said.