One Of The Strongest El Niño Events On Record Is On The Way...

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]The Pacific Ocean is doing something right now that it has only done three times in all of recorded modern history.

[00:00:05]The last time it did this, the year was 1997. It flooded California, triggered catastrophic droughts across Australia and Southeast Asia, disrupted food supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and rewrote the weather rulebook for an entire planet for an entire year.

[00:00:21]Scientists are now watching the exact same signals emerge in 2026, and some of the models are not just projecting another event like 1997. They are projecting something stronger, potentially the strongest in 150 years.

[00:00:33]It is Tuesday, May 20th, 2026, day 140 of the year. And today, we need to talk about El Niño. Let's start with the raw facts because the numbers here are striking, and I want you to understand them clearly before we get into what they mean for your weather. The Ocean Niño Index, the primary measurement scientists use to track El Niño, has already risen to plus 0.7° C in the Niño 3 4 region of the equatorial Pacific.

[00:00:59]That is the official El Niño threshold, which means this thing is already technically underway. This is not a future event being projected from far away. The warm water is already there, sitting in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, and it is building.

[00:01:12]NOAA's Climate Prediction Center issued their latest update, and it puts an 82% chance of El Niño developing and locking in between May and July of 2026. That number was 61% just a few weeks ago. The odds jumped that fast because what is happening in the Pacific is accelerating faster than the models expected, and there is now a 96% chance this event persists all the way through winter, December 2026 into February 2027. But here is where it gets really serious.

[00:01:39]NOAA's CPC is putting roughly 25% odds on each of three outcomes: very strong, strong, and moderate. A two in three chance of this being a strong or very strong event. And the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, the ECMWF, widely considered the gold standard of global modeling is projecting sea surface temperature anomalies potentially reaching plus 3° C by late 2026. 3°. Let me put that in context for you. A weak El Niño starts at plus 0.5° C. So, a plus 3° event would be six times the baseline threshold.

[00:02:15]In all of modern climate records going back to 1950, there have only been five super El Niño events. And the strongest of those peaked at around plus two.

[00:02:24]6° in 2015 to 2016. A plus 3° event would be something that has not happened in modern meteorological history.

[00:02:31]The only precedent in the scientific record is the El Niño of 1876 to 1878, which some researchers believe contributed to a global famine that killed approximately 50 million people.

[00:02:41]Now, I want to be clear about something important here, and I would not be doing my job if I was not honest with you about this.

[00:02:48]This is not a guaranteed outcome. NOAA's own scientists are careful to say there is still a one in three chance this ends up weaker than strong.

[00:02:55]There's a well-known problem in climate forecasting called the spring predictability barrier. During northern hemisphere spring, the Pacific system is especially difficult to model accurately. Confidence intervals get wide, and some of the atmospheric patterns needed to amplify this into a full super event, specifically what scientists call ocean-atmosphere coupling, where the ocean and the atmosphere start reinforcing each other, have not clearly emerged yet as of mid-May. NOAA's Michelle L'Heureux, a physical scientist at the Climate Prediction Center, put it directly when she told ABC News that while there is a two-in-three chance of strong or very strong, there is still a one-in-three chance of something weaker.

[00:03:33]So, the honest framing is this. The Pacific has loaded the dice for a potentially historic El Niño. The dice have not landed yet, but the trajectory is alarming enough that scientists, forecasters, and governments are already talking about preparation, and so are we.

[00:03:48]Okay, so let's talk about what is actually happening physically in the Pacific Ocean because it helps explain why this event is accelerating so fast and why it is being compared to 1997.

[00:03:58]Everything starts with what are called westerly wind bursts, essentially pulses of wind that blow from west to east across the equatorial Pacific, which is the opposite of the normal trade wind direction. Under normal conditions, trade winds blow from east to west and they push warm surface water toward Asia and Australia, keeping the eastern Pacific relatively cool.

[00:04:17]But when those trade winds weaken or reverse, that warm water starts sloshing back eastward toward South America. And when a series of powerful westerly wind burst fire in quick succession, they can push an enormous reservoir of heat eastward in the form of what oceanographers call a Kelvin wave, a massive pulse of warm water that travels just below the ocean surface until it reaches the eastern Pacific and wells up. That is exactly what is happening right now.

[00:04:41]Scientists are tracking a significant subsurface Kelvin wave that has been surfacing in the eastern Pacific, bringing that reservoir of heat to the ocean surface. And BBC Science Focus in their coverage this week specifically noted that a wind event is now visible in the early 2026 record that is drawing direct comparisons to the early 1997 wind event. And as that article noted, 1997 preceded what was probably the strongest El Niño of the 20th century.

[00:05:06]The projected intensification curve for the 2026 event is currently outpacing both the 1997 and the 2015 super El Niños at the same point in their development. That is the sentence that is getting the attention of climate scientists right now.

[00:05:20]Not because it guarantees a historic outcome, but because the early trajectory has been that dramatic. Let me break down the specific impacts for the United States because this is where it gets really important for the people watching this. And I want to separate what we know with high confidence from what remains genuinely uncertain because there is a tendency in coverage like this to either overstate everything or understate everything.

[00:05:41]Neither one serves you. The Southern Plains and Gulf Coast, the biggest potential winners. During strong El Niño events, the jet stream shifts south and strengthens across the southern tier of the United States. That typically brings wetter conditions to the southern plains, Texas, Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, and into the southeast during the fall and winter months. Drought. Gov has been specifically tracking the drought situation across the southern plains and noted that a typical strong El Niño pattern would bring needed improvement to drought conditions across Texas and the surrounding region. Though they also cautioned that it would not definitively end the drought without being historically wet. And being historically wet brings its own consequences, namely flooding. Texas is already getting repeated heavy rain and flash flooding events this spring. If a strong El Niño winter delivers months of above-average precipitation to a region that is already being pummeled, the flooding risk for the Texas Hill Country, the Edwards Plateau, and surrounding watersheds becomes a serious multi-season concern. The AccuWeather 2026 summer forecast specifically named the corridor from Texas to the Ohio Valley as the flooding zone to watch most closely. In part because of the July 2025 disaster in Kerr County where 135 or more people were killed. And with El Niño potentially amplifying the wet pattern going forward, that concern does not diminish after this spring. It compounds. The northern United States, a warmer and potentially much drier winter.

[00:07:04]During a strong to very strong El Niño, the northern tier of the country, the northern plains, the upper Midwest, the Great Lakes, the Pacific Northwest, typically experiences warmer than average winter temperatures and below-average precipitation. For a region that relies on snowpack for water supply, a warm and dry El Niño winter is not a neutral event. It is a water supply problem building in slow motion.

[00:07:25]Drought is expected to worsen in the northwest, northern California, and parts of the Gulf Coast and southeast over the coming months, regardless of how strong this El Niño ultimately gets.

[00:07:35]A super El Niño would intensify that for the northwest significantly. The Atlantic hurricane season, a massive wildcard.

[00:07:42]Strong El Niños are one of the most powerful suppressors of Atlantic hurricane activity in the climate system by increasing upper-level westerly winds across the tropical Atlantic. They create wind shear that physically tears apart developing hurricanes before they can organize.

[00:07:56]During the 2015 to 2016 super El Niño, only 11 named storms formed in the Atlantic, well below average.

[00:08:03]NOAA's discussion has explicitly noted that a stronger El Niño increases the probability of a suppressed Atlantic hurricane season. But, and this is a critical but, the 2026 Atlantic season is being called a major wild card because Atlantic sea surface temperatures are running unusually warm right now, independent of ENSO.

[00:08:21]Warm Atlantic water is the fuel for hurricane development. So, you've got two competing signals, El Niño trying to suppress the season with wind shear and warm Atlantic waters trying to fire it up with fuel. Major hurricane forecasting organizations are balancing those two competing signals carefully, and most are currently landing around 13 named storms, slightly below the 14-storm historical average.

[00:08:43]But, the genuine uncertainty here is high, and I want to say clearly, even a strongly suppressed Atlantic hurricane season is not a safe season. Hurricane Andrew formed during the 1991 to 1992 El Niño and caused $27 billion in damage.

[00:08:56]The 2004 season produced four hurricane landfalls in Florida during an El Niño year.

[00:09:01]El Niño reduces the odds of a very active season. It does not eliminate hurricane risk. Summer, severe weather heating up, not calming down. Here is something that might surprise people.

[00:09:11]El Niño developing does not make severe weather season quieter in the near term.

[00:09:15]AccuWeather's 2026 summer forecast explicitly states that severe weather is expected to be most active in June and July from the plains to the Midwest and Ohio Valley with near to above-average tornadoes in that corridor. The strengthening Pacific jet stream that El Niño drives actually enhances wind shear across the central United States during the summer months, which is exactly what feeds organized severe thunderstorm and tornado outbreaks. Severe Weather Europe's analysis of the developing El Niño confirmed that the latest ensemble forecasts are showing a shifting of the planetary jet stream that will directly affect thunderstorm development across North America as early as the first half of meteorological summer. Their hail frequency analysis shows a notable increase in expected reports across the west, central, and northern plains, the Intermountain West, the Southwest, and Florida.

[00:10:00]So, if you were thinking that a developing El Niño meant things would calm down after this brutal spring, that is not the right takeaway. The near-term signal is for the severe weather season to remain active and potentially ramp up further in June and July.

[00:10:14]There is one more thing I want to talk about because it is the piece of the story that makes 2026 genuinely different from 1997 or 2015, and it is something that climate scientists keep coming back to in every conversation about this event. NOAA confirmed that March 2026 was the hottest March ever recorded across the contiguous United States. The country just wrapped up its warmest 12-month record. And globally, temperatures are already running more than 1.4° C above pre-industrial levels, and that is before El Niño adds its additional warming on top. Here is why that matters.

[00:10:48]El Niño does not operate in isolation.

[00:10:50]It operates on top of whatever the baseline global temperature already is.

[00:10:54]And the baseline in 2026 is warmer than at any previous point in modern human history. So, a strong El Niño layered on top of that elevated baseline takes the climate system somewhere it has genuinely never been in the era of modern meteorological records.

[00:11:08]Dr. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, told BBC Science Focus this week that we have never experienced a strong or very strong El Niño event amid pre-existing global conditions that were this warm.

[00:11:20]And what that means practically is that the temperature extremes, the drought extremes, the flooding extremes, and the overall intensity of weather impacts driven by this El Niño are likely to be more severe than historical El Niño events of comparable strength would suggest, simply because everything is happening on a warmer baseline. NOAA's own data makes clear that it is already very likely that 2026 will rank among the five warmest years on record. And that is before accounting for El Niño's warming contribution.

[00:11:47]If this event peaks strongly through late 2026 and into early 2027, as a significant number of models project, then 2027 becomes the year many climate scientists are watching most closely for potential global temperature records.

[00:12:01]I do not want to leave this conversation in the abstract. So, let me translate all of this into practical terms for people watching today in May 2026.

[00:12:09]If you live in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, or the Deep South, the pattern over the next 6 to 12 months is likely to be wetter than average. That is generally welcome news for drought-stressed areas, but it comes with real flood risk. The Texas Hill Country in particular has already demonstrated this spring that it can absorb catastrophic amounts of rain in very short time frames. The setup for the rest of 2026 is going to keep that region in a state of heightened flood vigilance. Know your flood risk. Know your evacuation routes. Know which roads in your area go underwater first. This is not one-time preparation. This is something you need to maintain awareness of for the duration of this El Niño event. If you live in the Northern Plains, the Pacific Northwest, or the Great Lakes region, prepare for the possibility of a significantly warmer and drier than normal fall and winter.

[00:12:56]For farmers and ranchers in the Northern Plains, that means thinking about water supply now before shortages develop. For the Pacific Northwest, drought and wildfire risk going into summer and fall is already elevated. And a strong El Niño winter that delivers below-average snowpack makes the 2027 water supply picture genuinely concerning. For everyone across the central United States, severe weather season is not winding down.

[00:13:19]The signals for June and July are for an active tornado and severe thunderstorm season from the Plains through the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Stay weather ready. Do not assume that because spring has been brutal, summer will be quiet.

[00:13:31]The atmosphere is not done with you.

[00:13:33]For anyone planning major outdoor events, travel, or construction projects through the rest of 2026, build weather flexibility into your plans. This El Niño is going to be making itself felt from now through at least early 2027.

[00:13:45]The pattern is active, volatile, and increasingly amplified.

[00:13:49]Here is what I want you to take from everything we covered today. One of the potentially most significant climate events of the decade is developing right now in the Pacific Ocean. And it is developing faster than anyone expected.

[00:14:00]NOAA gives it an 82% chance of locking in by July. A two in three chance it becomes strong or very strong. A 96% chance it persists through winter. And models are projecting peak intensity levels that would rival or exceed the strongest El Niño in the modern record.

[00:14:16]That does not mean the worst outcome is guaranteed. Scientists are honest about the uncertainty that still exists, especially during this spring predictability window.

[00:14:24]But the trajectory is alarming enough to pay attention to right now, before the peak of the event. Because the decisions people and communities and governments make in the next few months are going to determine how prepared they are when this thing hits its stride.

[00:14:36]At Planet Brief, we are going to keep tracking this every step of the way.

[00:14:39]Every model update, every new NOAA outlook, every shift in the intensification curve. This is a months-long story and we are not going anywhere. Until next time, don't be scared, be prepared.