The 2026 Super El Niño: Records, Impacts and Forecasts

Who says it's a record

On 12 October 2026, water at least 3 °C warmer than normal covered a stretch of the equatorial Pacific roughly the size of the United States, about three times the area on the same date in 2015. On 9 October, Japan's Meteorological Agency said its NINO.3 region had averaged 4.0 °C above normal in September, beating the +3.6 °C set in December 1997 and making this the most intense El Niño in its records, which begin in 1949.

NOAA has not made the same call. On 1 February 2026 it switched to a warming-adjusted index, the Relative Oceanic Niño Index, which measures how much warmer the Niño 3.4 box is than the tropics as a whole. On that measure September was about level with September 1997. NOAA's 8 October outlook gave an 83% chance of a record between October and December. Copernicus reported the box's raw water temperature at an all-time high of 29.70 °C in September, while saying it could not yet call the event the strongest ever.

How El Niño works

Trade winds normally push warm surface water west towards Indonesia while cold, nutrient-rich water rises off Peru. Every two to seven years the winds weaken, the warm water and its rainstorms shift east, and the change feeds on itself, bending the jet streams that steer weather elsewhere. The name goes back to an 1892 report by the Peruvian navy captain Camilo Carrillo on a warm current the sailors of Paita saw after Christmas. Scientists missed the 1982 event until it was nearly at its peak, partly because volcanic haze from El Chichón threw off satellite readings; by December 1994 nearly 70 moored buoys lined the equator.

What the big ones did

A UN-backed study called 1997-98 the El Niño of the century and put its damage at $32 billion to $96 billion; one peer-reviewed estimate counted more than 20,000 deaths. Peru's losses came to about $3.5 billion, Indonesia's fires released carbon equal to as much as 40% of a year's fossil-fuel emissions, and about 16% of the world's coral reefs were seriously damaged. In 2015-16 the UN said 60 million people worldwide were affected by the droughts and floods.

Already under way (as of mid-October 2026)

• California declared a statewide state of emergency on 21 September to speed up levee and flood-channel work.
• Hurricane Polo strengthened from a tropical storm to 180 mph in about 30 hours.
• Peru's El Niño commission measured water off the north coast 8 to 9 °C above normal; the anchovy season closed early in August.
• India's monsoon finished at 87% of normal, officially deficient.
• UNICEF says more than 347 million children live where rainfall is forecast to be unusually wet or dry because of El Niño.

What the forecasts say

These are forecasts, not outcomes. NOAA expects a peak between October and December, staying very strong into the new year, and a return to neutral by early summer 2027. WMO forecasters suggest about +3.7 °C by December on one common measure. Strong events tend to bring wetter winters across the southern United States and milder, drier ones in the northern US and Canada. The Met Office says 2027 is very likely to be the warmest year on record. "Super El Niño" is a nickname: NOAA's top category is "very strong". Figures were checked on 14 October 2026; NOAA's next update is due on 12 November 2026.