2026 Super El Niño

Introduction

Earlier this year, the tropical Pacific was still emerging from La Niña. Now, just a few months later, something remarkable is happening: El Niño is strengthening so quickly that NOAA reports there is now more than a 90 percent chance it will become very strong this fall and winter.

We have talked about El Niño before on this podcast, breaking down the trade winds, ocean currents, and atmospheric circulation patterns that make this natural cycle work. This year's El Niño is particularly notable because it could rival in strength one of the deadliest climate disasters of the 1800s. So what happens when an event that powerful meets the interconnected world of 2026? Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Dr. Mac, and this is The Climate Translation.

The Shove

To understand how we reached this point, we need to rewind the Pacific Ocean by about a year. During much of 2025, the tropical Pacific experienced La Niña, which strengthened the easterly trade winds that blow along the equator. Those persistent winds pushed warm surface water toward Indonesia and Australia, allowing vast amounts of heat to accumulate in the western Pacific. By early 2026, La Niña was fading, but the heat banked in the western Pacific remained, with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center tracking an extensive reservoir of unusually warm water beneath the surface of the equatorial Pacific.

Then the wind patterns shifted. During the development of an El Niño, meteorologists monitor westerly wind bursts—episodes where the prevailing easterly trade winds weaken or temporarily reverse to blow from west to east along the equator. These wind bursts push stored warm water eastward across the basin. Rather than simply sliding across the surface, that thermal energy propagates through the ocean as an equatorial Kelvin wave, which functions as a massive subsurface pulse transporting warm water thousands of miles toward South America. By the spring of 2026, satellites and moored ocean buoy arrays confirmed a powerful warm pulse moving eastward.

In April, an unusual meteorological pattern accelerated this transition: three tropical cyclones developed simultaneously across the equator, with Cyclones Maila and Vaianu forming in the South Pacific and Super Typhoon Sinlaku developing to the north. As highlighted by the Climate Adaptation Center using data from NOAA and Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the atmospheric circulation around these storms triggered a potent westerly wind burst that delivered another strong eastward shove to the warm water. While the subsurface heat and initial westerly anomalies were already established, this event amplified the process, initiating the Bjerknes feedback: warmer eastern waters weakened trade winds further, allowing more warm water to surge east, suppressing cold-water upwelling along South America, and locking the ocean and atmosphere into a self-reinforcing loop. By August, what began as an initial shove had become an unmistakable swing of the Pacific seesaw.

The El Niño That Changed the World

To understand why scientists are monitoring this development so closely, it helps to look back nearly 150 years. In 1877 and 1878, the Pacific experienced one of the most intense El Niño events ever reconstructed. While instrument observations were sparse compared to modern satellite and buoy networks, a 2020 NOAA-led study headed by climate scientist Boyin Huang analyzed available sea-surface temperature records and estimated that parts of the tropical Pacific warmed by roughly 3.5 degrees Celsius above normal, potentially exceeding the major events of 1982, 1997, and 2015.

The global consequences during that era were devastating. A 2018 study led by climate scientist Deepti Singh and published in the Journal of Climate reconstructed the "Great Drought" between 1875 and 1878, finding that Asia experienced some of its most severe drought conditions in 800 years. Monsoons failed across India, northern China endured persistent arid conditions, and severe drought struck Brazil, southern Africa, and Australia, triggering widespread crop failures. The human toll was catastrophic, with historical estimates indicating between 12 and 29 million deaths in India, 19 to 30 million in China, and roughly 2 million in Brazil, resulting in a global death toll that likely exceeded 50 million people—approximately three percent of the world's population at the time.

El Niño did not cause this loss of life in isolation. Unusual ocean temperature patterns in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans exacerbated and extended the droughts. Crucially, drought alone does not create famine; the climate caused crops to fail, but human systems determined the severity of the disaster. In colonial India, for example, grain continued to be exported while millions starved, infrastructure was insufficient to transport available food, and traditional communal storage systems had deteriorated. The weather initiated the crisis, but societal and political systems dictated its outcome, presenting a vital point of comparison as we evaluate the modern climate system.

A Different World

If an El Niño matching the magnitude of 1877 occurred today, the global impact would look very different because modern agricultural systems and logistics have evolved significantly. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, global agricultural productivity has outpaced consumption and population growth since the 1980s, supported by advanced irrigation, high-yield and drought-tolerant crop varieties, synthetic fertilizers, modern pest management, and satellite forecasting that provides months of lead time. Furthermore, global grain reserves are robust: India maintains large rice stores, Brazil serves as a major exporter of soybeans and corn, and international maritime shipping allows food deficits in one region to be offset by surplus harvests from another.

However, global integration also creates new vulnerabilities by providing direct transmission pathways for climate shocks. A drought affecting coffee production in Southeast Asia quickly translates into higher retail prices globally. West Africa produces roughly half of the world's cocoa, meaning erratic rainfall in that region directly impacts global chocolate markets. Disruptions to sugar harvests in India or Thailand ripple across commodity exchanges, while river droughts can stall barge and container traffic carrying essential foodstuffs.

These economic shocks occur alongside existing geopolitical tensions, fuel costs, and supply chain disruptions. The United Nations World Food Programme warned that a very strong El Niño could push nearly 49 million additional people into acute food insecurity across 45 vulnerable nations by the end of 2027, primarily in regions already contending with poverty, conflict, and fragile local supply networks. While modern technology allows us to forecast events and transport resources across oceans, localized climate disruptions now propagate through interconnected global markets faster than ever before.

What Happens Next

As we head into the fall of 2026, the equatorial Pacific continues to warm rapidly. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center reported that sea-surface temperatures in parts of the eastern equatorial Pacific are already more than 3 degrees Celsius above average, with subsurface anomalies reaching as high as 10 degrees Celsius above normal in select areas. Atmospheric coupling is fully underway, characterized by weakened trade winds and an eastward shift in convective rainfall. NOAA forecasters estimate a greater than 90 percent probability of a very strong event persisting through the winter of 2026–2027, with a 69 percent chance that it will surpass every El Niño in NOAA's modern observational record dating back to 1950.

While an extreme El Niño alters probabilities rather than guaranteeing specific local weather outcomes, several global patterns become significantly more likely. The World Meteorological Organization anticipates heightened drought risk across parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, and southern Africa, alongside increased flood risks in portions of South America. Coastal fisheries along western South America face disruption as warm surface waters suppress nutrient-rich upwelling, and agricultural producers are closely tracking potential heat and moisture stress across key commodity regions.

In the United States, the climate signal typically strengthens as fall transitions into winter. NOAA's seasonal outlook favors above-normal precipitation extending from the Southwest through the central and southern Plains, as well as parts of the Southeast during autumn. By winter, an energized subtropical jet stream typically enhances storm activity and precipitation across California, the southern tier of the country, and the East Coast, while favoring warmer-than-average conditions across northern states. Furthermore, because this event releases immense oceanic heat into an atmosphere already warmed by greenhouse gases, the British Met Office noted that 2027 could challenge global temperature records. Unlike in 1877, modern science provides the tools to observe these oceanic shifts in real time and prepare months before peak impacts arrive.

Conclusion

El Niño is an established component of Earth's climate system, but this event stands out due to its rapid intensification, projected magnitude, and the warmer global baseline in which it is unfolding. In 1877, societies faced extreme climate disruptions with virtually no advance warning and limited capacity to respond. Today, satellite networks, ocean buoys, and computational modeling allow us to track subsurface heat, evaluate shifting probabilities, and coordinate resources well in advance.

While an extreme El Niño brings complex challenges to global agriculture, water management, and weather patterns, modern science provides our greatest advantage: the time to prepare.

I'm Dr. Mac. This has been The Climate Translation. If you have a question about the climate that you have been too afraid to ask, or if you have a differing opinion, I want to hear from you. I can use your viewpoints in a future episode. You can reach me at TheClimateTranslation@gmail.com. I'll see you next time.