Super El Niño Surges to Record Strength as Forecasts Hit Historic Territory
Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter
The 2026 Super El Niño is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, with new data showing record westerly wind anomalies and a powerful Kelvin wave driving ocean warming. Forecasts now project peak anomalies exceeding +3°C, potentially making it the strongest event on record. The atmosphere is already responding, and impacts on the US, Canada, and Europe are expected to be significant this fall and winter.
The 2026 event has already surpassed the last Super El Niño event (2015-2016) in speed and strength.
- izend
The strongest El Niño ever caused a massive famine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o...
- boredumb
We've been on and off with water service because of it, we've got a bit of rain the last few days but the resovoirs in Puerto Rico were looking real skinny last week. Nothing humbles you like coming inside from doing yard work in the August Caribbean sunshine to realize your shower isn't running. RIP to my tomatos.
- gmuslera
Remember that this is just a piece of the complex system that is the global climate. And over it, there are more systems affected, including human ones like food production or economy. Something this extreme may cause from a severe disruption or a permanent instability in those systems, specially considering feedback loops in all of them.
- Chris660
I found myself moved by this recent interview with Prof. Kevin Anderson on the topic of climate change (and associated politics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBFos_T7cT0
He paints quite a bleak picture of the situation we are in (I tend to agree), but there's also a glimmer of hope in there.
- martyvis
We're expecting a dry and hot spring and summer this year in Australia (and our winter has been milder than average to boot). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-31/nsw-el-nino-weather-e...
- xrd
I really tried to get through this. But sentences like this were confusing to me:
In simple terms, the ocean surface anomalies are just the surface footprint of this massive subsurface warm core.
- bix6
Great write up but bummed to not see any info about the waves. It’s been a bonkers summer!
- dev1ycan
Lima, Peru... daytime and night time temps are +8-+3 (single day, might be the coldest of the year) degrees celcius, usually should be like 18-16 celcius daytime, it's at 26-21 (single day, might be the coldest of the year) with +6-+8 being the most common... already past mid winter and there hasn't been a single "cold" day yet.
Pelicans are mass starving so are sea lions as cold based fish have left the shores, no long sleeves or sheets needed to sleep, it's been summer prety much all year... never seen this in 31 years of life... supposedly 98 was bad although this one is projected to be worse... summer temps might hit 39-34 celcius on average if things keep going this way when normally you have 31-27 degrees during summer, considering most houses don't have air conditioning I can definitely see a lot of heat related deaths happening and a potential food crisis forming.
- Noaidi
People really don’t appreciate yet. How really bad this situation is and will be. They’re talking about 1.76°C higher temperatures next year because of this El Niño. Those are climate change temperatures that are not supposed to be around until 2035. So it’ll give us a sneak peek into our future.
But the biggest effect and this is noted by many insurance companies now is going to be in places like India.
But this is something the world has never seen and I mean that literally so I don’t expect it to be anything but really bad and you should be ready.
- jauntywundrkind
Meanwhile West Antarctic ice shelf barely clutching on.
No direct link, but click the "anomaly" map button just underneath the map. Hello all these similar 10+ °C anomalies that have sat around. Some colder spots too that have hung around! But yikes.