A powerful El Niño is set to reshape global weather in 2026
Weeks after the Pacific Ocean engine helped neutralize Earth’s weather, meteorologists and scientists are now focused on El Niño, the evolving signals of the warm phase.
What is remarkable is what global forecast models derive from early signals.
Zeke Hausfather, director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, said nearly all models show an El Niño forming in the coming weeks, and the average forecast among them is “a pretty strong event.” “This would put us on track for one of the strongest El Niños in recent history, but it is too early to know for sure.”
The possibility of a strong El Niño is raising fears of additional heat, including marine heatwaves, piling on top of long-term climate warming, given its anticipated arrival at a time when temperatures have already been warmer than normal for months across much of the West and parts of the Pacific. Due to the model’s strong influence on the world’s weather, forecasts are alarming globally, and a strong event could create ripple effects in the coming months.
El Niños fueled wildfires and caused extreme flooding and major droughts. These have led to widespread coral bleaching and disrupted marine life migrations and foraging.
However, uncertainty remains. Spring is a very difficult time for El Niño patterns.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the odds of a strong El Niño at 1 in 4 in its April update. Since then, ocean surface temperatures have been increasing in the El Niño region. NOAA’s next update is coming May 14.
This May 6 satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows areas in the world’s oceans where surface water temperatures are above or below normal. Orange and red patterns developing along the equator in western South America indicate conditions where scientists expect El Niño to occur later this summer.
What is El Niño?
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation is “arguably the most influential climate driver on Earth,” according to the Environmental Sciences Research Cooperative Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The natural recurring pattern in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean cycles between three phases: El Niño, La Niña, and neutral. First documented by fishermen on the west coast of South America in the 1600s as it brought unusually warm water to the Eastern Pacific at Christmas time, its effects extend far beyond those shores.
Because the ocean is so large, disturbances over the Pacific Ocean can have far-reaching consequences. Where ocean heat is released into the atmosphere affects atmospheric circulation, worldwide temperatures, and precipitation.
NOAA once told the rest of the global atmosphere, “El Niño’s arrival in the Pacific is like a giant ringing so loud it knocks plates off the shelves of a house down the street.”
What’s going on right now?
The cooler phase, La Niña, subsided by sunset in early April, and although its impact on drought in some parts of the United States continues, El Niño is widely predicted to begin in the coming weeks. Satellite data show sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific increased sharply in April.
But it takes more than warmer-than-normal waters to meet the threshold NOAA uses to declare an El Niño. Over a period of time, the El Niño region receives water that is almost one degree warmer than average, and the trade winds and atmospheric responses weaken accordingly.
The Western and Southwestern regions of the country experienced the warmest winters in history. According to NOAA, the northeastern Pacific reached its warmest average temperature ever (about 69 degrees) on Sept. 9, and marine heat waves continued throughout the winter and into spring. In March, ocean waters along parts of the West coast were roughly 3 to 4 degrees above normal, according to NOAA’s latest sea surface temperature measurements.
And on March 8, NOAA said: In the Lower 48 in the last 12 months was again warmer than other 12-month periods, and more than 40% of the continental United States is experiencing severe to exceptional drought.
How strong can El Niño be?
The potential strength of the event is not yet known, although forecasters and global models see factors such as a warm water cloud in the Pacific indicating an increased likelihood of a strong El Niño.
Like Hausfather, senior research associate Brian McNoldy University of Miami, are among those who maintain websites that provide regular updates on global forecast models. McNoldy also issued a warning in a recent social post.
“There is a lot of talk about the forecast evolution of a strong #ElNiño,” said McNoldy. Models “have very good consensus on this. But the consensus is for an ‘average’ strong El Niño, not a historical one.”
The final outcome depends on wind patterns along the equator during the summer in the Pacific, NOAA said in April.
Various factors play a role. First, computer models have better capabilities between June and December than earlier in the year. Columbia Climate School at Columbia University. Predictions are likely to become more accurate as the summer progresses.
Double jeopardy? Climate change and El Niño pushing Earth ‘beyond its limits’
Other surrounding weather conditions moving through the atmosphere can also influence the formation and strength of El Niño. This year, NOAA began using an adjusted index that takes into account warmer temperatures from climate change before calculating power, Hausfather said. The method has been debated, but he said it’s a better way to counteract the effects of “human-caused global warming,” thus preventing El Niños from appearing to get stronger over time.
Do every El Niño behave the same way?
Three El Niños were considered the most intense: 1982-1983, 1986-1987 and 2015-2016. They have been blamed for worldwide weather disasters such as floods, extreme droughts and famine in Africa; Increase in mosquito-borne virus cases on the East Coast; and a massive “blob” of ocean water in the Pacific that killed nearly 1 million seabirds.
Do previous El Niños indicate what we will see later this year? Not necessarily. Years ago, NOAA scientist Deke Arndt humorously explained this in a 2015 blog post he wrote for the agency’s former website, Climate.gov.
At your favorite spot, the staff can bring you your special drink when you walk in. But walk in one night and the bartender gives you something completely unexpected, wrote Arndt, who is now director of the agency’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
“El Niño is like that bartender,” he wrote. Seeing the bartender may reduce your chances of getting your favorite drink, but it’s not a guarantee. “In other words, El Niño is the bartender who sometimes doesn’t bring you what you ordered.”
Hurricanes and El Niño
A notable impact of El Niño tendency to reduce tropical activity In the Atlantic Ocean. A change in the path of the jet stream over the United States can produce downdrafts and sinking winds that are known to suppress (but not eliminate) hurricane activity in the main Atlantic region where hurricanes often form. These winds can prevent storms from creating the self-sustaining structure they need to become hurricanes.
But the National Hurricane Center and others warn that storms, even major destructive hurricanes, can and do occur during El Niño years, especially in the American Gulf, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. A comparison of 15 of the warmer El Niños on record shows that at least 37 named storms, including 14 hurricanes, made landfall in the contiguous United States.
This Climate.gov infographic explains how the El Niño Southern Oscillation may affect weather around the world.
La Niña and wildfires
Even as conditions change, researchers warn that La Niña’s lingering effects could still contribute to increased wildfire activity.
a study By researchers from the Cooperative Institute and NOAA A strong connection has been found between fall La Niñas and an increase in fire activity in the spring. It reported that the risk of extensive burns in the South, Southwest and Rocky Mountains doubles during the summer months, as well as risks in the Great Basin and Northern California regions. Fall El Niño appears to increase the risk of major fires in the eastern and northern Rocky Mountains in the spring.
El Niño oscillation “offers a powerful tool for predicting outcome” possibility of extensive wildfire activity “Up to a year in many parts of the United States,” said NOAA researcher and lead author Andrew Hoell. The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
As the massive Pacific engine begins to shift again, scientists will monitor satellites and other instruments to determine how the world’s weather will change in the coming months.
See NOAA’s projected sea surface temperature anomalies
Click the buttons at the top of the chart labeled SST anomaly and outlook to see predictions for the next 16 weeks.
Sea surface temperature anomaly view
USA TODAY national correspondent Dinah Voyles Pulver writes about severe weather, climate change and other news. Reach him at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or dinahvp.77 on X or Signal.
This article first appeared on USA TODAY: El Niño forecast in 2026. Here’s what heat and hurricanes mean
