March 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nHow could a strong El Ni\u00f1o play out on the West Coast of the U.S.?<\/p>\n
We had El Ni\u00f1os of this magnitude in \u201982-83, \u201997-98, and 2015-16. That\u2019s what they\u2019re predicting is most likely to happen. We\u2019ve looked at a lot of those winter storm conditions over the last 44 years, and typically, what happens is you get higher water levels along the coast of California, half a foot to a foot higher for the whole winter. Storms are going to be right on top of higher sea levels. What\u2019s consistent across all those events is larger wave energy, bigger waves, sometimes 50 percent above average during the winter. That\u2019s the real kicker.<\/p>\n
For the more recent El Ni\u00f1os, it\u2019s been a mixed bag in terms of precipitation. For example, 2015-16 was a really powerful El Ni\u00f1o, but we had a drought. We had really big waves, and they caused lots of coastal erosion. But we didn\u2019t get the rainfall that we were accustomed to getting prior to those powerful events.<\/p>\n
To summarize, the consistent thing across all those events is much larger waves and very high incidents of beach erosion. What\u2019s been random is the rainfall, and people are trying to understand those atmospheric patterns better. There is a (general) trend of storm tracks moving further north due to climate change. What we may see is that we have massive storms in the Pacific still being generated during El Ni\u00f1os, which bring really, really big waves to California. But the storms (and their rainfall) have been going further north, not hammering Southern and Central California as they have in the past. There really aren\u2019t enough data points to say that\u2019s a long-term trend, or just some observations from the most recent event in 2015-16.<\/p>\n
Surfers in California associate an El Ni\u00f1o with more westerly, or even southwesterly, swells. You\u2019re saying that due to climate change, this might not be the case for this upcoming El Ni\u00f1o?<\/p>\n
There just aren\u2019t enough data points to know for sure. But, in general, storm tracks are moving further north, and during El Ni\u00f1o, they drop down. But if they\u2019re already starting further north, it\u2019s not going to necessarily be as impactful for rainfall for the southern half of California. What\u2019s been consistent across El Ni\u00f1os is really big waves that come more from the south during these El Ni\u00f1os, but that wasn\u2019t so much the case in 2015-16. There\u2019s been some sort of anomalous behavior that we\u2019re like, \u201cWait, this doesn\u2019t fit.\u201d For scientists, we have to keep analyzing the data and figuring out what\u2019s going on, and our hypotheses have to be continually tested.<\/p>\n
We certainly could have an El Ni\u00f1o that has all those things: really big waves that are more from the south, higher water levels, and lots of rainfall. You get all these atmospheric rivers that come in, and it\u2019s a bit of a roll of the dice in terms of where they hit. That\u2019s hard to predict this far out.<\/p>\n
When you said the ocean levels will be half a foot to a foot higher, why is that?<\/p>\n
We get this warm pool of water along the eastern Pacific, and then that warm water gets pushed up against the coast and splits \u2014 goes north and south, migrating up the coast. Warmer water is less dense. It takes up more room. It\u2019s called the \u201csteric effect.\u201d It raises water levels throughout the whole season. It\u2019s a long-term El Ni\u00f1o phenomenon. You\u2019ve got this warmer water along the coast, so the water levels are higher.<\/p>\n
And is that just on the eastern basin of the Pacific Ocean?<\/p>\n
Yes. And during La Ni\u00f1a, when you have really warm water in the western Pacific, it piles up on the other side of the basin.<\/p>\n
As a result, can we expect some extreme king tides?<\/p>\n
If this Godzilla El Ni\u00f1o, as they say, comes to fruition, you basically raise (the ocean\u2019s) base level. So every event, every high tide, you add on top of that. And it just amplifies the impacts you have from king tides and storms. It\u2019s an accelerant to coastal hazards.<\/p>\n
As far as the impacts on land, could we say there\u2019d be increased erosion, beach loss, and flooding? Maybe more snowpack in the mountains?<\/p>\n
During the 2015-16 event, we didn\u2019t get much rain, but we had everything else \u2014 a lot of coastal erosion, coastal flooding. During other events, like \u201982-83 and \u201997-98, there was a ton of rain, and a lot of snow in the Sierras. What was really damaging about the 2015-16 event is that these big waves hammered the coast, and there was very little rainfall to produce sand in the watersheds to replenish those beaches. It was amid a pretty long drought, and it was not the drought-buster that people were hoping for. There wasn\u2019t all that much rain that particular El Ni\u00f1o. People are still trying to figure out why that was.<\/p>\n
What can we expect for the Atlantic hurricane season during a strong El Ni\u00f1o?<\/p>\n
My understanding is that El Ni\u00f1os actually reduces the number of Atlantic hurricanes because they increase the wind shear, so these events, especially in the Caribbean, get knocked down and aren\u2019t able to evolve into the big storms. And again, it\u2019s just a probability thing. Hurricanes can still happen, but it just usually means a suppressed hurricane season in the Atlantic. However, the hurricane season in the Pacific usually gets jacked up.<\/p>\n
What is the climate science community doing to better understand the new patterns of El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a under climate change?<\/p>\n
There are lots of people running global climate models, trying to better understand the evolution of these atmospheric patterns with climate variability, and the models are getting better. I mean, up until five, 10 years ago, they didn\u2019t resolve El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a events very well. They\u2019re getting better and better at doing that. Certainly, NOAA was one of them that was looking at that. Folks like Dan Cayan and the team at Scripps have been trying to understand these patterns. And there are lots of observations \u2014 indices that NOAA puts out: the Oceanic Ni\u00f1o Index and the Multivariate ENSO index, which look at atmospheric conditions, temperature in the tropical Pacific, and atmospheric pressure and temperature, for example. So they\u2019ve been tracking those for many, many years and looking at how they\u2019re changing, and then using global climate models to look at what those indices are going to look like in the future.<\/p>\n
Some of the more recent studies have suggested that there may not be an increase in the number of El Ni\u00f1o events, but an increase in the more extreme ones, like the one that is likely to happen this winter. We\u2019re going to see an increase in the frequency of the most extreme events because we\u2019ve got warmer atmospheric conditions, warmer ocean conditions, and lots of convection \u2014 energy that can be transferred into these more extreme events.<\/p>\n
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