A Super El Niño Brewing This Year

July 1, 2026

According to reporting on the Kathryn Heyhoe website, there is a 63% chance that a strong El Niño will develop before the end of this year.  This is a condition that is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures. On June 11, NOAA confirmed that El Niño conditions have developed. El Nino's affect weather patterns all around the world.  In the U.S. likely impacts would include wet conditions in the South and a warmer-than-usual winter over northwestern and central North America.

If the 63% chance that a strong El Niño develops, the impacts could be severe, and could include massive wildfires in Australia, floods in East Africa, record-breaking coral bleaching across the Pacific, and hefty price hikes in food around the world. A super El Niño of the magnitude expected this year has happened only three times since 1980: 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16.  The 1982 El Niño is considered the worst of them historically.  It caused up to 2,000 deaths and triggered droughts and wildfires in Africa, Australia, and Indonesia, while dumping record rainfall on Peru.  The global economic toll from that El Niño was pegged at $4.1 trillion.Needless to say, rapidly changing climate will make this and any El Niño worse.