This May 6 satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows areas of the world’s oceans where surface water temperatures are above or below normal. A pattern of developing oranges and reds along the equator west of South America shows conditions that scientists expect to form an El Ni\u00f1o later this summer.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
What is El Ni\u00f1o?<\/h2>\n The El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation is “arguably the most influential climate driver on Earth,” according to the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.<\/p>\n
The natural recurring pattern in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean cycles between three phases: El Ni\u00f1o, La Ni\u00f1a and neutral. First documented by fishermen off the west coast of South America in the 1600s because it brought unusually warm water to the eastern Pacific around Christmastime, its effects extend far beyond that coast.<\/p>\n
Disturbances over the Pacific Ocean can have far-reaching consequences because the ocean is so large. It influences where ocean heat is released into the atmosphere, atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation around the world.<\/p>\n
NOAA once said that to the rest of the global atmosphere, “the arrival of El Ni\u00f1o in the Pacific is like a giant ringing a bell so loudly that it knocks the dishes off the shelves in a house down the street.”<\/p>\n
What’s happening right now?<\/h2>\n The cooler phase \u2013 La Ni\u00f1a \u2013 faded into the sunset in early April, and though its influence on drought in parts of the United States may linger, El Ni\u00f1o is widely forecast to begin in the weeks ahead. Satellite data shows sea surface temperatures rose sharply in April in the central and eastern Pacific.<\/p>\n
But it takes more than just warmer-than-normal waters to meet the threshold NOAA uses to declare an El Ni\u00f1o. It takes water nearly a full degree warmer than average in the El Ni\u00f1o region over a period of time, with a corresponding weakening of the trade winds and response in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
The West and Southwest regions of the country\u00a0saw their warmest winters on record. The northeast Pacific reached its highest ever average temperature, about 69 degrees, on Sept. 9, and marine heat waves continued through the winter and into the spring, according to NOAA. In March, ocean waters along parts of the West coast were roughly 3 to 4 degrees above normal based on NOAA’s latest sea surface temperature measurements.<\/p>\n
And on March 8, NOAA said\u00a0the past 12 months in the Lower 48\u00a0were again warmer than any other 12-month period, and severe to exceptional drought is occurring over 40% of the continental United States.<\/p>\n
How strong could El Ni\u00f1o be?<\/h2>\n Though forecasters and global models see factors such as an extending plume of warm water in the Pacific that suggest odds are increasing for a strong El Ni\u00f1o, the potential strength of the event remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Like Hausfather, Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at\u00a0the University of Miami,\u00a0is among those who maintain websites with regular updates on the global forecast models. McNoldy also offered a word of caution\u00a0in a recent social post.<\/p>\n
“There is lots of chatter about the forecast development of a strong #ElNi\u00f1o,” McNoldy said. The models “are in very good agreement on that. But the consensus is an ‘average’ strong El Ni\u00f1o, not historic.”<\/p>\n
The eventual outcome depends on wind patterns along the equator in the Pacific over the summer, NOAA said in April.<\/p>\n
Several factors are in play. First, computer models have better skill between June and December than earlier in the year, according to the\u00a0Columbia Climate School at Columbia University. So as the summer progresses, the forecasts are likely to be more accurate.<\/p>\n
Double danger?\u00a0<\/strong>Climate change, El Ni\u00f1o push Earth ‘beyond its limits’<\/span><\/p>\nOther surrounding weather patterns moving through the atmosphere also can affect El Ni\u00f1o formation and strength. And this year NOAA started using an adjusted index that accounts for the warmer temperatures from climate change before calculating strength, Hausfather said. The method has been debated, but he said it’s arguably a better way to remove the effects of “human-driven global warming” so that it doesn’t make it appear that El Ni\u00f1os are getting stronger over time.<\/p>\n
Does every El Ni\u00f1o act the same?<\/h2>\n Three El Ni\u00f1os have been considered the most intense: 1982-1983, 1986-1987 and 2015-2016. They’ve been blamed for weather disasters around the world, including floods, extreme droughts and famines in Africa; increased cases of mosquito-borne viruses on the East Coast; and a large “blob” of ocean water in the Pacific that killed roughly 1 million seabirds.<\/p>\n
Do previous El Ni\u00f1os demonstrate what we’ll see later this year? Not necessarily. Years ago, NOAA scientist Deke Arndt humorously explained this in a 2015 blog post for the agency’s former website Climate.gov.<\/p>\n
In your favorite establishment, the staff might bring you your signature beverage when you walk in. But one night you could walk in and the bartender hands you something completely unexpected, wrote Arndt, now director of the agency’s National Centers for Environmental Information.<\/p>\n
“El Ni\u00f1o is like that bartender,” he wrote. Seeing the bartender might tilt your odds toward getting your favorite beverage, but it\u2019s not a guarantee. “In other words, sometimes El Ni\u00f1o is the bartender who doesn\u2019t bring you what you ordered.”<\/p>\n
Hurricanes and El Ni\u00f1o<\/h2>\n One notable effect of El Ni\u00f1o is\u00a0a tendency to decrease tropical activity\u00a0in the Atlantic Ocean. A shift in the path of the jet stream over the United States can spawn downdrafts and sinking winds that have been known to suppress \u2013 but not eliminate \u2013 hurricane activity in the main region of the Atlantic where hurricanes often form. Those winds can prevent storms from building the self-sustaining structure they need to become hurricanes.<\/p>\n
But the National Hurricane Center and others warn that storms, even major devastating hurricanes, can and do occur in El Ni\u00f1o years, particularly in the Gulf of America, formerly the Gulf of Mexico. When comparing 15 of the warmer El Ni\u00f1os on record, at least 37 named storms have made landfall in the contiguous United States, including 14 hurricanes.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>
\nThis Climate.gov infographic explains how the El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation can impact weather around the globe.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
La Ni\u00f1a and wildfires<\/h2>\n Even as conditions shift, researchers warn lingering effects from La Ni\u00f1a can still contribute to increased wildfire activity.<\/p>\n
A study\u00a0by the Cooperative Institute and NOAA researchers\u00a0found a strong link between fall La Ni\u00f1as and an increase in spring fire activity. It reported a twofold increase in the relative risk of extensive burns in the South, Southwest and Rocky Mountains, as well as risks in the Great Basin and Northern California regions during summer. An autumn El Ni\u00f1o appears to elevate the risk of large fires in the eastern and northern Rocky Mountains in the spring.<\/p>\n
The El Ni\u00f1o oscillation “offers a powerful tool for predicting the\u00a0likelihood of extensive wildfire activity\u00a0in several U.S. regions up to a year out,” said Andrew Hoell, a NOAA researcher and lead author of the\u00a0study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.<\/p>\n
As the vast Pacific engine begins to shift again, scientists will be watching the satellites and other instruments to determine how the world’s weather will change in the months ahead.<\/p>\n
See NOAA’s projected sea surface temperature anomalies<\/h2>\n Click the buttons at the top of the chart labeled SST anomaly and outlook to see the projections over the next 16 weeks.<\/p>\n
Sea surface temperature anomaly outlook<\/p>\n
Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writes about violent weather, climate change and other news. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.<\/em><\/p>\nThis article originally appeared on USA TODAY:\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o forecast in 2026. Here’s what it means for heat, hurricanes<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weeks after the Pacific Ocean engine that\u00a0helps drive the world’s weather\u00a0shifted into neutral, meteorologists and scientists are now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-weather"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3167,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions\/3167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}