Overview
- NOAA confirmed the start of El Niño this week and the agency’s Climate Prediction Center gives a 63% chance the event will reach a “very strong” level between November 2026 and January 2027.
- Scientists say a strong El Niño transfers ocean heat to the atmosphere, making 2027 more likely to set a new global temperature record and increasing near‑term heat extremes worldwide.
- Regional weather shifts are expected to vary: wetter winters and more storms for parts of the U.S. South and California, drier conditions and wildfire risk for Australia and Indonesia, and altered monsoon and Amazon rainfall patterns.
- NOAA has begun using the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) for operational monitoring, and governments and agencies are stepping up surveillance and preparedness as models continue to show strengthening.
- Beyond immediate weather changes, experts warn a very strong El Niño could hurt crops, fisheries and water supplies and raise food and economic stress for vulnerable communities, echoing impacts from past major events in 1982–83, 1997–98 and 2015–16.