{"id":356888,"date":"2026-06-11T22:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356888\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:31:09","slug":"el-nino-is-here-and-strengthening-rapidly-it-could-give-long-beach-a-preview-of-life-after-climate-change-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356888\/","title":{"rendered":"El Ni\u00f1o is here and strengthening rapidly. It could give Long Beach a preview of life after climate change \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forecasters say a powerful El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern is here and could strengthen later this year into one of the most formidable in decades. Its shifting winds could redirect trapped oceanic heat to California\u2019s coast, bringing with it a cascade of torrential rain and warmer tides that endanger marine life.<\/p>\n

During a press conference at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach Thursday, experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this year\u2019s still-growing El Ni\u00f1o could be the strongest of the century, with a 63% chance to develop between November and January into one of the worst events since 1950.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o is the name given to powerful shifts in Pacific Ocean winds and water temperatures that can transform global weather patterns, sparking droughts and heat waves, tropical storms and flooding. It can also harm or kill marine life, as weakened winds slow the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water for plankton and send populations elsewhere for food.<\/p>\n

Experts say the current marine heat wave is about one-third the size of the 2015 \u201cSuper\u201d El Ni\u00f1o, with nominally high temperatures and sequestered to Southern California\u2019s coast, but it could build into a bona fide El Ni\u00f1o pattern this fall.<\/p>\n

For Long Beach and much of Southern California, this could mean stronger rains and sea level rise \u2014 about six inches expected statewide \u2014 during the winter season, which spans December to February, as storms normally originating from the northwest instead move directly into the state.<\/p>\n

Surface water temperatures, which range between 55 and 72 in the summer, could reach 2 to 3 degrees higher on average.<\/p>\n

Nate Jaros, the Aquarium of the Pacific vice president of animal care, said even a few degrees can set the ecosystem off kilter<\/a>, leaving marine life at risk of starvation or exposure to toxic algal blooms.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reporters and scientists gather around a giant globe at the Aquarium of the Pacific showing real-time sea temperatures around the world on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Long Beach. Photo by John Donegan.<\/p>\n

In Long Beach, warmer waters will likely cause disoriented marine life to venture closer to shore in search of food. This includes mako sharks, yellowfin tuna, mahi mahi, yellow-bellied sea snakes, seahorses, red crabs and maybe even some whale sharks, Jaros said.<\/p>\n

Aquarium officials warn that sea lions are at an especially high risk, and said people shouldn\u2019t be surprised if they find one stranded on the beach. The public should call the NOAA West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network hotline at 866-767-6114 if they spot an animal in distress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to likely see nutritionally challenged animals hitting the beaches,\u201d said Brett Long, an aquarium vice president of animal care. \u201cOr if there is a harmful algal bloom that leads to the molecular acid toxicity, we\u2019re going to see animals either looking very sick on the beach, seizing, which tends to be very not easy to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Projections are mixed about how large this El Ni\u00f1o will be. Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, said it is in the early stages of formation and might not live up to the hype.<\/p>\n

Stronger El Ni\u00f1os don\u2019t always deliver for Southern California; the 2015\u20132016 Super El Ni\u00f1o \u2014 with an exceptionally large mass of heat \u2014 failed to produce the wetter-than-average winter the region expected.<\/p>\n

But if the most recent forecasts prove accurate, Cohen added, this year\u2019s will be a whopper, and its consequences would play out across a region already battered by declining marine life and kelp populations. This season could also give Long Beach residents a preview of what life on the coast will be like in just a decade or two if global warming continues at its current pace, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know folks may want to have an exact vision for how things are going to evolve in terms of weather patterns, but we just don\u2019t have the scientific basis to give full confidence at this point,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cWe\u2019re already seeing the conditions favoring this El Ni\u00f1o pattern come into light here now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forecasters say a powerful El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern is here and could strengthen later this year into one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-356888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}