Overview
- NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, which issued an update Thursday, now puts the chance of El Niño at 82% for May–July and 96% by winter.
- Model guidance shows a meaningful risk of a very strong event, with NOAA assigning a 37% chance for winter and ECMWF runs pointing to anomalies near +3°C in the central Pacific.
- An unusually large pool of subsurface heat, created by spring wind reversals and a downwelling Kelvin wave, is surfacing in the eastern Pacific and driving rapid warming.
- Forecasts remain less reliable in spring because the ocean must lock in with the atmosphere through repeated eastward wind bursts and weakened trade winds, a coupling that failed in 2014 and 2017.
- Expected knock‑on effects include fewer Atlantic hurricanes and more in the eastern and central Pacific, a weaker Indian monsoon, shifting global rainfall, and a short‑term boost to global heat, with clearer strength signals likely by mid‑June.