Pacific heat build-up: There is increasing evidence of another strong El Niño this year. The Pacific climate phenomenon could further increase global temperatures and cause weather extremes. The probability of an El Niño in the coming months is now 82 to 96 percent; the tropical Pacific has already warmed unusually strongly. The coming El Niño could also be a particularly strong “super El Niño” – it would only be the third in the last 30 years. But what would be the consequences?
Every few years, the El Niño climate phenomenon abnormally heats the central Pacific and changes ocean currents and winds across the entire Pacific region. The trade winds, which normally blow steadily westward, are weakening significantly, and at the same time the rise of cold deep water off the west coast of South America is stopping. This is creating a huge wedge of warm water in the tropical Pacific, upending the region’s normal weather patterns and also driving up global temperatures. The last El Niño occurred in 2023/2024, it was particularly strong and brought record global temperatures.
First signs already in spring
Is the next El Niño coming now? Researchers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European climate monitoring centers reported the first indications of impending El Niño conditions in the spring of this year. Increased surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific and a growing pool of anomalously warm water masses in deeper ocean layers provided the first indications of the climate phenomenon. The trade winds over parts of the El Niño region also weakened in March 2026.
The problem, however, is that weather turbulences can cause such El Niño signs to disappear again until May. As a result, spring forecasts are notoriously unreliable and have often resulted in “false alarms.”
Probability of 82 to 96 percent
Now there is new data: On May 14th, NOAA published an updated El Niño forecast that is already much more precise. According to this, sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are now between 0.4 and one degree above the long-term average, depending on the region – the threshold for an El Niño is 0.5 degrees. “The water layers below the ocean surface down to depths of 300 meters have continued to warm steadily over the past six months,” reports NOAA. The trade wind anomalies also continue.
Based on this data, there is a 96 percent probability that a new El Niño will begin this year. The probability that this climate anomaly will begin between May and July is at least 82 percent, as the NOAA announced. “The state of the ocean currently points very clearly towards an emerging El Niño event,” comments climate researcher Johanna Baehr from the University of Hamburg. “The question is therefore less whether an El Niño event will develop, but rather when such an event will begin and how strong it will be.”
Will it be a “Super El Niño”?
How strong the coming El Niño will be is currently uncertain. By definition, a particularly intense “Super El Niño” occurs when Pacific sea temperatures are more than two degrees above the long-term average for an extended period of time. The climate phenomenon has only exceeded this threshold twice in the last 30 years: in 1997/98 and 2015/16. The strong El Niño of 2023 reached this threshold briefly, but did not stay above it long enough.
2026/27 could now be the third El Niño that breaks this threshold: NOAA puts the chance of a “super El Niño” at 37 percent, with a further 30 percent indicating a strong El Niño that is just below the super category. “The strongest El Niño events occur when the atmosphere and ocean conditions reinforce each other. The development of this interaction in the summer will be crucial,” explains Baehr.
The climate researcher also emphasizes that the term Super El Niño can be misleading: “On the one hand, it can be misunderstood because it is automatically associated with particularly dramatic effects.” But that is by no means automatically the case. The term initially only refers to the height of the marine temperature anomaly. “On the other hand, it is currently by no means certain whether an exceptionally strong event will actually develop,” Baehr continued.
What would be the consequences of a strong El Niño?
If the coming El Niño were to be strong or even very strong again, this would have an impact on the global climate: The heated Pacific will then also drive up global mean temperatures and will most likely set new temperature records – by 2027 at the latest. The most likely weather extremes include drought and increased risk of forest fires in Australia, Indonesia and southern Africa, but also increased heavy rain on the west coast of South and Central America and a weak Indian monsoon.
“The influence of El Niño on Europe, on the other hand, is more complex and significantly less direct than in the Pacific region,” explains Baehr. For us, the climate phenomenon is just one influence among many. Whether the weather in Europe is actually measurably influenced by an El Niño and in what way is therefore controversial. Increased cold snaps in winter Central Europe, but also more frequent and more intense summer heat waves in southern Europe are being discussed.
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), ENSO Forecast May 14, 2026 (PDF); Nature, Science Media Center