An alarming weather pattern is emerging. NOAA doesn’t know what to make of it yet

El Niño is “likely to emerge soon,” with an 82% chance of it forming between May and July, and with a 96% chance it will continue from December into February 2027, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center.

The report, out Thursday, says while there is “still substantial uncertainty about El Niño’s peak strength” this hurricane season—and it’s too early to tell—the summer outlook does seem ripe for the possibility of creating “very strong” conditions later, as “the strongest El Niño events in the historical record are characterized by significant ocean-atmosphere coupling through the summer.”

In addition, NOAA says 2026 is already shaping up to be among the warmest on record, with last month ranking as the fourth-warmest April since global records began in 1850.

What is El Niño?

El Niño is a complex weather pattern that refers to the warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures, in the Pacific Ocean.

Winds that normally blow from west to east weaken, and in some cases they blow east, disrupting normal weather and creating more extreme meteorological events, per the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). As the winds “take warm water from South America towards Asia,” that’s replaced by cold water that rises, known as “upwelling,” according to NOAA.

The impact can be global, not only intensifying storms and flooding, particularly in the Southeast and Gulf Coast, but also creating wildfires and drought. The 2015 Super El Niño caused a significant Caribbean drought.

El Niño episodes typically last nine to 12 months and occur, on average, every two to seven years.

The term El Niño, which means “little boy” in Spanish, was first coined by a South American fisherman who noticed unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean in the 1600s, according to NOAA.

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