NOAA said Thursday that this year's El Nino has an 81% chance of becoming very strong by fall, putting the warming event on track to rank among the most intense since the agency started tracking them in 1950. The system formed last month and has already moved past the weak stage into moderate territory.
The forecast matters now because the strongest effects are expected in fall and winter, when El Nino can reshape weather far beyond the Pacific. Forecasters said it can tilt the odds toward droughts in some places, downpours in others, a rainier winter across much of the southern United States, warmer winter conditions in the northern United States and Canada, and a weaker Atlantic hurricane season. For people searching for Los Angeles Weather, that is the kind of shift that can change the season before it arrives.
Emily Becker said this El Nino will rival the 1997-1998 event, which was tied to 23,000 deaths in weather disasters and as much as $45 billion in costs, a comparison that underlines how large the current setup could become. Daniel Swain said this is not a run-of-the-mill El Nino, and Becker said it is “pretty extreme” and “not unprecedented, but very unusual.”
The evidence for that warning is in the ocean itself. Temperatures in key parts of the Pacific are already at or near record highs for this time of year, and that is why confidence is rising that the event could keep strengthening. But Becker also drew the line that forecasters are careful to keep in view: a very strong El Nino does not guarantee even more intense extreme weather. It raises the odds of it, but it does not lock in the outcome.
That distinction matters because the forecast is only part of the story. Colorado State University cut its Atlantic hurricane season outlook on Wednesday, saying confidence in a strong or very strong El Nino was high enough to expect overall Atlantic hurricane activity to be well below normal. The global pattern is becoming clearer, but the real-world impact for the United States, Canada and the broader winter season will depend on how far this El Nino goes from here.
For now, the answer is that the event is already strong enough to matter and still has room to intensify. The next test is whether the ocean warmth holds through fall, and whether the weather that follows matches the scale forecasters now think is possible.
