An already-strong\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o\u00a0just turned super as the phenomenon crosses into unprecedented territory.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0natural climate cycle\u00a0has been strengthening at a breakneck pace since it was first declared in June and is stronger now than it’s ever been on this date. And isn’t done bulking up yet.<\/p>\n
\u2600\ufe0f\u00a0Get your local forecast from the CNN Weather app<\/strong><\/p>\n Forecasters have thought\u00a0for months\u00a0that El Ni\u00f1o would become very strong or “super” by this fall. The key measure of its strength has now crossed that threshold and will continue to soar higher.<\/p>\n As a refresher: El Ni\u00f1o is characterized by warmer–<\/strong>than–<\/strong>average water temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. The warmer water triggers corresponding shifts in the atmosphere that have a domino effect on weather patterns around the globe.<\/p>\n An active Pacific hurricane season that’s churned out\u00a0multiple threats for Hawaii, a\u00a0hurricane-less\u00a0Atlantic hurricane season to date and\u00a0Indonesia’s overwhelming wildfires\u00a0are just a few effects of this very strong El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n The stronger an El Ni\u00f1o is, the more likely it is to influence these types of weather patterns \u2014 but\u00a0<\/em>it doesn’t guarantee more extreme impacts.<\/p>\n To capture El Ni\u00f1o’s strength, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters measure how far above normal sea surface temperatures are in a specific region of the Pacific, using a metric called the Ni\u00f1o 3.4 Relative Oceanic Ni\u00f1o Index, or RONI.<\/p>\n The latest weekly RONI value just hit 2.0 degrees Celsius, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above average. This is the threshold for “very strong,” the highest official category set by forecasters. That’s also when El Ni\u00f1o gains its unofficial “super” moniker.<\/p>\n These weekly values from NOAA capture a reliable snapshot of El Ni\u00f1o’s strength in real-time, which is crucial because of just how fast the event is gaining ground.<\/p>\n This time a year ago, a weak La Ni\u00f1a \u2014 El Ni\u00f1o’s cool counterpart \u2014 was in place, and only a handful of other years have had such a rapid flip to a potent El Ni\u00f1o, including the strongest ever event from 1982 to 1983.<\/p>\n Even so, using the weekly values is a slight departure from the norm.<\/p>\n NOAA’s most widely recognized strength metric is a three-month rolling average RONI. The rolling average’s purpose is to smooth out choppy short-term changes in data in favor of capturing a cleaner long-term average; that value updates once a month.<\/p>\n This is how a climate record that dates back decades is built, but the delayed data means it’ll take weeks for that reading to truly capture how super-sized El Ni\u00f1o is right now.<\/p>\n This isn’t a normal event: In addition to being the strongest El Ni\u00f1o on record on this date, it’s ultimately likely to become stronger than any event before it.<\/p>\n By the end of the year, El Ni\u00f1o has a 75% chance of peaking as the strongest event since records began in 1950, according to\u00a0NOAA’s latest forecast\u00a0issued last week.<\/p>\n This year’s El Ni\u00f1o is also happening in a much hotter world than previous record-setting events due to climate change. One look at sea surface temperatures from this year compared to past record events shows just how much fossil fuel pollution has rewritten the rules.<\/p>\n Climate change has literally\u00a0changed the metric\u00a0used to monitor El Ni\u00f1o. This event is the first to be captured by NOAA’s aforementioned RONI, which was first implemented in February.<\/p>\n The old metric took sea surface temperatures at face value, but RONI subtracts out how much warmer the Pacific Ocean is because of climate change to get the “true” strength of El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n Even so, this El Ni\u00f1o continues to clear hurdles in its pursuit of record-breaking strength later this fall or early this winter.<\/p>\n Winter is when El Ni\u00f1o is forecast to hit its peak strength and is also typically when its influence on global weather is most pronounced, but it’s already left many calling cards behind this summer as it strengthened rapidly.<\/p>\n It was, and continues to be, a major factor in both the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons. In the Atlantic, it’s taken\u00a0storm-killing wind shear\u00a0to extreme levels and kept it there, even at what should be the busiest time of the season. That’s created a\u00a0record-long wait\u00a0for the season’s first hurricane.<\/p>\n El Ni\u00f1o has prevented that same type of wind shear over the exceptionally warm Pacific and activity exploded. Sixteen storms, including two Category 5 hurricanes, have formed and thrived in the eastern and central parts of the ocean so far, with Hawaii alone facing three tropical systems in less than a month.<\/p>\n Fourteen of those storms originated in the East Pacific, which, with two and a half months of the season still to come, will likely blow past its average seasonal storm total of 15.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Indonesia is battling widespread wildfires and conditions could deteriorate further: El Ni\u00f1o years make the country drier than usual, which leaves plenty of tinder-dry vegetation for blazes to consume and limited rainfall to help fire crews tamp down ongoing activity.<\/p>\n El Ni\u00f1o also raises global average air temperatures above levels already being increased by climate change and was\u00a0<\/strong>a factor\u00a0<\/strong>in making\u00a0<\/strong>this summer such\u00a0<\/strong>a scorcher around the globe.\u00a0<\/strong>This\u00a0<\/strong>August\u00a0was Earth’s hottest on record and could mark the start of a record-breaking warm stretch that would likely culminate in a record-hot 2027 \u2014 and possibly 2026 \u2014 globally.<\/p>\n It’s clear El Ni\u00f1o is already a major player, but it will hit its full stride in the months ahead, right on time to\u00a0dictate winter weather\u00a0across the US.<\/p>\n For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An already-strong\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o\u00a0just turned super as the phenomenon crosses into unprecedented territory. The\u00a0natural climate cycle\u00a0has been strengthening at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3834","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\/3834","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=3834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3836,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions\/3836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Turning super<\/h3>\n
Breaking new ground<\/h3>\n
Past, present and still to come<\/h3>\n