The Strongest El Niño Ever Measured Is Forming Right Now

A super El Niño is forming in the Pacific right now, and it is already stronger than the 1997 and 2015 events at the same point in the calendar. NOAA puts the odds of a very strong El Niño above 90 percent — and gives it a 69 percent chance of exceeding every El Niño on record since 1950. For the week centred on August 12, 2026, sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific ran 2.7 degrees Celsius above normal. At the same date, 1997 stood at 1.6 and 2015 stood at 1.3. Those two years produced the most disruptive El Niño events of the last half century, and this one has already passed both of them — months before an event of this kind normally peaks. This video explains how an El Niño actually works: the Bjerknes feedback that turns a small disturbance into a basin-wide event, the downwelling Kelvin wave that shuts off upwelling off South America, and the subsurface heat already loaded beneath the equator. It also covers something almost nobody reporting on this event has mentioned. In February 2026, NOAA changed the index it uses to measure El Niño strength, switching to the Relative Oceanic Niño Index to strip out background ocean warming. On the new index the strongest event since 1950 is no longer 2015-16 — it is 1982-83. Any comparison between this event and past ones has to specify which ruler it uses. Then the consequences: a suppressed Atlantic hurricane season that is not the same thing as a safe one, a displaced subtropical jet aimed at the southern United States, the collapse of the Peruvian anchoveta fishery, drought and fire risk in Australia, and the global temperature spike that historically arrives the year after the peak rather than during it. CHAPTERS 0:00 The number that beat 1997 2:42 How an El Niño builds 5:34 NOAA changed the ruler 9:06 What it does to winter 14:11 The year after 📡 SOURCES: Data and imagery courtesy of NOAA, NASA, and the Copernicus Climate Change Service. "August 2026 ENSO Diagnostic Discussion", via cpc.ncep.noaa.gov https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product... "Cold and Warm Episodes by Season — Oceanic Niño Index", via cpc.ncep.noaa.gov https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/prod... "Why NOAA Is Switching to the Relative Oceanic Niño Index", via climate.gov https://www.climate.gov/news-features... "Weekly ENSO Update and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies", via cpc.ncep.noaa.gov https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product... "IRI/CPC ENSO Model Forecast Plume", via iri.columbia.edu https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertis... "NOAA Updates 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook", via noaa.gov https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noa... "Colorado State University Atlantic Hurricane Forecast", via tropical.colostate.edu https://tropical.colostate.edu/foreca... "CPC Seasonal Temperature and Precipitation Outlooks", via cpc.ncep.noaa.gov https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product... "Copernicus Seasonal Forecast Bulletin", via climate.copernicus.eu https://climate.copernicus.eu/charts/... "Southern Oscillation Index and ENSO Monitoring", via bom.gov.au http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/ "The 1997-98 El Niño Event and Global Coral Bleaching", via coralreefwatch.noaa.gov https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/ "Argo Float Network — Ocean Temperature Profiles", via argo.ucsd.edu https://argo.ucsd.edu/ #elnino #weather #climate #extremeweather #hurricane #pacific #noaa #climatechange #weatherforecast #science