{"id":685757,"date":"2026-07-11T08:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T08:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685757\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T08:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T08:57:17","slug":"el-nino-strengthens-81-chance-of-becoming-one-of-the-strongest-on-record-by-late-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685757\/","title":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o strengthens, 81% chance of becoming one of the strongest on record by late 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">El Ni\u00f1o has strengthened significantly over the past month and is expected to intensify through the remainder of 2026, according to the latest ENSO Diagnostic Discussion released by NOAA\u2019s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) on July 9.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is now a 97% chance that El Ni\u00f1o will persist through early spring 2027. Model guidance also indicates an 81% probability that the event will become a very strong El Ni\u00f1o during the October-December period, potentially placing it among the strongest events recorded since reliable records began in 1950.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific continued warming during the past month. A broad region of the Pacific is now experiencing sea surface temperature anomalies exceeding +1.0\u00b0C (+1.8\u00b0F), while the latest weekly Ni\u00f1o-3.4 index reached +1.2\u00b0C (+2.2\u00b0F).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2295\" height=\"1649\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/NOAA-CPC-ENSO-strength-probablity-July-2026.webp\" alt=\"NOAA CPC ENSO strength probablity-July 2026\" class=\"wp-image-251073\"  data-\/>Image credit: NOAA\/CPC<img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2295\" height=\"1484\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Relative-sst-anomalies-july-1-2026-NOAA-CPC.webp\" alt=\"Relative sst anomalies july 1, 2026-NOAA-CPC\" class=\"wp-image-251074\"  data-\/>Image credit: NOAA\/CPC<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The strongest warming remains concentrated in the eastern Pacific, where the Ni\u00f1o-1+2 region registered +2.7\u00b0C (+4.9\u00b0F). Meanwhile, the Ni\u00f1o-4 region in the western Pacific measured +0.5\u00b0C (+0.9\u00b0F).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Warming beneath the ocean surface also increased as a recent downwelling Kelvin wave deepened the thermocline and transported warmer water eastward, reinforcing the ongoing El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2295\" height=\"1072\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/subsurface-temperature-anomalies-July-2-2026.webp\" alt=\"subsurface temperature anomalies July 2, 2026\" class=\"wp-image-251075\"  data-\/>Image credit: NOAA\/CPC<img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2295\" height=\"1237\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/upper-ocean-heat-anomalies-NOAA-CPC-July-2026.webp\" alt=\"upper ocean heat anomalies-NOAA-CPC-July 2026\" class=\"wp-image-251076\"  data-\/>Image credit: NOAA\/CPC<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Atmospheric conditions have strengthened alongside the ocean warming. Meteorologists observed low-level westerly wind anomalies across the western and central equatorial Pacific, upper-level easterly wind anomalies, enhanced thunderstorm activity over the central and east-central Pacific, and suppressed convection over Indonesia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Traditional indicators of the Southern Oscillation also remained strongly negative, providing additional evidence that the ocean and atmosphere are now closely coupled\u2014a hallmark of a strengthening El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Forecast models from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME), including NOAA\u2019s Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2), consistently project further warming through the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">References:<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1 El ni\u00f1o\/southern oscillation (ENSO) diagnostic discussion \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/products\/analysis_monitoring\/enso_advisory\/ensodisc.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">NOAA\/CPC<\/a> \u2013 July 9, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o has strengthened significantly over the past month and is expected to intensify through the remainder of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[121825,166928,3541,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-685757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-el-nino","tag-enso","tag-noaa","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}