Overview
- Experts said Thursday that multiple climate model ensembles and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology now assess the 2026 El Niño as very likely to be ‘very strong’ and have raised the chance it could peak at or above the largest events on record.
- Operational signals — unusually warm central and eastern Pacific sea‑surface temperatures, deep subsurface heat and early active eastern Pacific storms such as Hurricane Fausto — support the model trend toward an intense event.
- NOAA has advised there is about an 81% chance of a ‘very strong’ El Niño by October–December 2026 and expects El Niño conditions to persist into at least April 2027, making seasonal impacts likely to stretch across two winters.
- Scientists say this El Niño layered on top of long‑term human driven warming raises the odds of new global temperature records, greater heat extremes, coral bleaching and reduced ocean carbon uptake, and could cut global economic growth through direct weather damage to agriculture and infrastructure.
- Regional risks are uneven: forecasts point to weaker monsoon rains in parts of South Asia, drier and hotter seasons in Australia, more eastern Pacific tropical cyclone activity with a likely suppression of the Atlantic, and possible winter shifts in North America and Europe depending on polar vortex responses.