{"id":589379,"date":"2026-04-08T03:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T03:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589379\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T03:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T03:08:13","slug":"a-super-el-nino-is-coming-heres-how-a-hotter-ocean-could-change-the-weather-near-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589379\/","title":{"rendered":"A Super El Ni\u00f1o is coming. Here\u2019s how a hotter ocean could change the weather near you"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Get ready to hear a lot more about El Ni\u00f1o during the next several months \u2014 and maybe even longer \u2014 as the infamous climate cycle returns again, developing and intensifying in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. If it forms as expected, this El Ni\u00f1o will redraw global weather maps, sparking flooding for some and drought and wildfires for others \u2014 all while simultaneously speeding up the pace of global warming.\n <\/p>\n

\n There are increasing indications that an El Ni\u00f1o is not only imminent \u2014 setting in by late summer or early fall \u2014 but that it could be a significant one, too.\n <\/p>\n

\n In fact, this might even qualify as a \u201cSuper El Ni\u00f1o,\u201d which would significantly increase impacts felt around the world. Such extremely intense El Ni\u00f1os are rare.\n <\/p>\n

\n To declare an El Ni\u00f1o, in general, ocean temperatures in a particular region of the tropical Pacific must clear 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average. A Super El Ni\u00f1o, in contrast, happens when temperatures are more than 2 degrees C above the average. Some typically reliable computer models, like the European modeling suite, are projecting just such an outcome for this go-around.\n <\/p>\n

\n El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a, names that translate to \u201cthe Boy\u201d and \u201cthe Girl\u201d, are recurring climate cycles in the tropical Pacific Ocean that happen every few years and can have profound effects on global weather patterns. In the case of El Ni\u00f1o, the cycle can bring both flooding and drought to different parts of Africa, help pummel the U.S. West Coast with winter storms and lead to more heat extremes globally.\n <\/p>\n

\n El Ni\u00f1o is characterized by unusually warm waters along the equatorial tropical Pacific Ocean, and a related series of shifts in winds and precipitation patterns in the atmosphere. It is a so-called coupled phenomenon, meaning that to get an El Ni\u00f1o, both the ocean and the atmosphere must be responding to one another in characteristic ways.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n The atmosphere tends to react to the warmer waters by shifting areas of heavy precipitation closer to that hot region of the ocean. The trade winds that typically blow from east to west near the equator can slacken and then reverse direction as well. Those shifts are significant enough to affect weather around the world,<\/a> like a series of dominoes toppling over.\n <\/p>\n

\n Right now, huge volumes of unusually warm water are spreading under the ocean surface from the Western to the Eastern tropical Pacific, where that water slowly rises to the surface in a clear precursor to El Ni\u00f1o. Periodic areas of wind blowing from the west to the east have helped transport this water, in what are appropriately known as westerly wind bursts.\n <\/p>\n

\n While El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a, El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s cooler sibling, are fascinating from a meteorological perspective, we care about them because of the ways in which they can affect extreme weather events around the world. In fact, they can cause billions of dollars in damages, and a stronger El Ni\u00f1o would likely make the usual impacts more severe.\n <\/p>\n

\n Spotting an El Ni\u00f1o in formation and predicting its evolution \u201cgives us an early heads up on changing risks for many weather-related phenomena, including floods, droughts, heatwaves, hurricanes and severe thunderstorms,\u201d said Nat Johnson, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. \u201cThese weather and climate impacts modify crop yields, disease spread, coral bleaching, fisheries and many other parts of the earth system that affect our daily lives.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n There\u2019s still a lot of uncertainty around the upcoming El Ni\u00f1o, including a range of forecast outcomes, especially when it comes to intensity, Johnson said. To cloud matters a bit further; computer model projections made during the spring tend to have lower accuracy than projections made at other times of the year, a phenomenon known as the spring prediction barrier.\n <\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Hot and hotter<\/p>\n

\n In the U.S., El Ni\u00f1o tends to have its peak effects during the winter months, when it can send a fusillade of storms into parts of California and along the southern tier of the U.S., bringing the risk of flooding.\n <\/p>\n

\n It can also speed up winds in the upper atmosphere across the tropical Atlantic Ocean during the fall. This causes wind shear to increase, and this can tear apart nascent tropical storms and hurricanes \u2014 putting a damper on the Atlantic hurricane season.\n <\/p>\n

\n In addition, strong El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s have also been linked to heat waves in the U.S. and other parts of the world.\n <\/p>\n

\n Globally, El Ni\u00f1o is known to tilt the odds in favor of drought and heat waves in Australia, where it can also raise wildfire risks. Other areas prone to drought during El Ni\u00f1o include northern sections of South America (including parts of the Amazon rainforest), central and southern Africa and India. El Ni\u00f1o can also cause too much rain to fall, with favored areas for flooding outside of the U.S. including southeastern South America, the Horn of Africa, Iran, Afghanistan and other parts of south-central Asia.\n <\/p>\n

\n When it comes to the climate, El Ni\u00f1o tends to release enormous amounts of heat stored in the oceans back into the atmosphere, boosting global average surface temperatures. If a strong El Ni\u00f1o does form and continues through the winter, then it is almost assured that either 2026, 2027 or both years will set new records for the warmest year since instrument data began in the 19th century.\n <\/p>\n

\n The globe is already warming at an accelerating rate<\/a>, and an intense El Ni\u00f1o would speed that up even faster, at least for a few years. If climate change is like ascending an escalator, with some years warmer than others, an El Ni\u00f1o year is equivalent to jumping up and down while riding on that escalator \u2014 reaching record new heights, albeit briefly.\n <\/p>\n

\n The last El Ni\u00f1o, which was not a Super El Ni\u00f1o, resulted in 2024 being the current holder of the warmest-year title. The last Super El Ni\u00f1o occurred in 2015-2016, with others in 1997-98, and 1982-83. Super El Ni\u00f1os are not a technical designation from NOAA but instead are an informal definition used by some forecasters and the media to refer to a very strong El Ni\u00f1o\n <\/p>\n

\n Meteorologists will be closely watching as the Pacific waters heat up to see just how strong an El Ni\u00f1o we get. If the European model is proven correct, it could even be the strongest El Ni\u00f1o on record.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get ready to hear a lot more about El Ni\u00f1o during the next several months \u2014 and maybe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-589379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}