Climate scientists believe that a rare, strong El Niño—typically known as a “Super El Niño” could form in the coming months.
Strong El Niños do not happen often—there have been only five since 1950, with the last taking place from 2015 to 2016. Scientists still aren’t sure whether an El Niño is certain this year, but the likelihood is increasing, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting on April 9 a 61% chance of an El Niño, and a one in four chance that it might be strong.
The prediction comes on the heels of record-setting weather. January through March of this year was the driest on record in the United States, while Europe experienced its second-warmest March on record. The Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that March had its second-warmest global sea surface temperature on record, further indicating the possibility for El Niño conditions to form later this year.
Here’s what to know about “Super El Niños” and their impact on weather conditions.
What does a super El Niño mean?
El Niño and La Niña are names for the warm and cool phases of a natural climate pattern that take place across the tropical Pacific. El Niño is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures, while La Niña is characterized by unusually cool ocean temperatures. El Niños typically occur every two to seven years and can last anywhere from nine to 12 months to a few years.
A strong El Niño, colloquially referred to as a “super El Niño” occurs when average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific rise at least 2°C.
“El Niño occurs when warm water that’s built up in the West Pacific sloshes to the east and replaces that normally cold water with warmer water. And a super El Niño condition is when that warmer water basically erases the cold tongue,” says Paul Roundy, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Albany. “So the East Pacific in November and December could be 2-3°C above normal, whereas a more moderate or weaker El Niño event might only be half a degree above normal.”
What impact will a super El Niño have?
The effects of El Nino are felt differently around the world, says Roundy. “Places that don’t normally get very much rain can get a lot of rain, and places that are normally wet end up being drier than normal.”
A strong El Niño year can typically mean a quieter Atlantic hurricane season, but could bring more hurricanes to the Central Pacific. The summer monsoon season in South Asia could be weaker, and the fall and winter could bring drought conditions to parts of the Amazon and Australia. In the U.S., parts of the South might see more rain and cooler temperatures, while the northern areas could experience warmer-than-average temperatures.
An El Niño could also pose a threat to food security amid a number of other global crises— including price spikes for fuel and fertilizer due to the Iran war.
“We’ve become a lot better at producing food in less ideal situations, and we’re better at transporting food around, but there is risk of crop failures in some parts of the world in response to redistribution of rainfall, because the El Niño tends to result in it raining less in places that are normally wet,’ says Roundy.
When was the last super El Niño? And how is climate change impacting El Niños?
Scientists are still trying to understand the link between El Niño events and climate change. Some research seems to show that the burning of fossil fuels, and the resulting warmer atmosphere and oceans, could be making El Niños stronger, but not all climate scientists agree.
“There are signs that it seems like the El Niños of our future are going to be different because of the warming climate,” says Ian Faloona, micrometeorologist in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources at the University of California, Davis. “It’s hard to forecast even now in the current climate, and then forecasting it in a warmer climate is even more tricky.”
Strong El Niños can alter weather patterns for years. A December 2025 study found that a super El Niño year can trigger “climate regime shifts”—sudden and persistent changes in a climate system that pose serious threats to ecosystems and human well-being, and a warming world would make them a more frequent occurrence. The researchers found that after the 2015-16 super El Niño, the Gulf of Mexico reached a new sustained level of warmth that might have contributed to stronger hurricanes along the Gulf Coast in the following years.
Since then, the past 10 years have already been the hottest on record. El Niños release heat stored in the ocean back into the atmosphere, which causes global average surface temperatures to rise. A strong El Niño, coupled with rising temperatures due to climate change, could set new records for the warmest year in 2026 or 2027.
“There’s a long term, upward trend in temperature that’s caused by climate change. And then there’s the natural fluctuation of El Niño superimposed on that,” Roundy says. One study published in March adjusted data to account for short-term natural fluctuations in global temperature caused by factors like El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles and found that the pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015.
A strong El Niño coupled with already warming global temperatures could shatter records in the coming years, says Faloona: “If we have another El Nino, this means the global temperatures for 2026 or 2027 primarily, are likely to be much, much higher than ever before.”
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