A developing El Niño in the Pacific could intensify into a rare “super El Niño”
Forecasts suggest it may become one of the strongest such events in over a century
Likely to disrupt global weather patterns, including India’s monsoon cycles
It could trigger extreme events such as floods, droughts and shifting storm tracks
New research links super El Niño events to long-term climate regime shifts affecting ecosystems and livelihoods
A developing climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean could reshape global weather patterns later this year, with forecasts warning it may intensify into a rare “super El Niño”.
An El Niño ocean-atmosphere event is forming in the equatorial Pacific and is expected to begin influencing global conditions by the Northern Hemisphere summer. Forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and other experts suggest it could evolve into one of the strongest El Niño events in over a century.
El Niño is the warmer-than-normal phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon that takes place in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. During this phase, the trade winds above large areas of the eastern and central Pacific Ocean become much weaker than normal.
The trade winds are not able to move the warm surface water towards the west and let the colder water take its place, which leads to a build-up of higher sea surface temperatures in this region.
The higher sea surface temperatures (SST) and the weaker trade winds lead to different atmospheric impacts in different parts of the world. Usually, over the Indian subcontinent, an El Niño event leads to suppression of rainfall during the southwest monsoon season and an increase in rainfall during the northeast monsoon season.
The 2026 super El Niño event could trigger massive changes in the planet’s climate system known as climate regime shifts (CRS). These CRSs are “abrupt and persistent transitions between alternative stable states in the climate system” and “pose serious threats to ecosystems and human well-being”, according to a research paper published in the journal Nature Communications in December 2025.
The latest ENSO update from the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States on April 6, 2026 said that there is a 62 per cent chance of El Niño development during June to August 2026. The event could last until the end of 2026, according to NOAA.
The indications for the development of an El Niño have been around for many months. In January 2026, many experts foretold the rapid development of an El Niño amid a quick collapse of the ongoing La Niña conditions. In early February, higher-than-normal SSTs started to emerge in the far eastern Pacific Ocean, according to NOAA.
In the last four weeks, NOAA said that below-normal SSTs have weakened in the east-central Pacific Ocean. At the same time, above-average SSTs have strengthened from Baja California in the US to the west-central Pacific Ocean. The above-normal SSTs in the far eastern Pacific Ocean have also remained steady.
The upper ocean heat anomalies in the Pacific Ocean are also warmer than average, indicating the development of an El Niño. The subsurface temperatures have also steadily increased between mid-December 2025 and late February 2026. After a slight decrease, the subsurface temperature anomalies have again increased since early March 2026.
NOAA’s prediction for El Niño is more than 70 per cent for July to September and 80 per cent for August to October.
Multi-model forecasts from North American and international systems suggest a transition to El Niño in the summer of 2026. The average upper-level value for the SST anomaly in the equatorial Pacific Ocean shows the formation of a super El Niño, with SST values more than 2°C above the long-term average. El Niño is declared when the SST anomaly crosses 0.5°C.
“Given the usual later peak of this event and the strong anomalies building, it is becoming increasingly likely that the 2026 El Niño will be the next ‘super’ event,” wrote Severe Weather Europe, a climate-related platform led by meteorologists.
“A super El Niño differs from a normal event because the warming in the Pacific becomes more intense, resulting in a stronger impact on global weather. This can lead to more extreme weather shifts, turning typical seasonal changes into high-impact events like massive flooding, severe droughts, and significantly altered storm tracks that can affect the entire planet,” it added.
The last three super El Niño events occurred in 2015-16, 1997-98 and 1982-83. The 2015-16 El Niño led to a record global annual average temperature at the time and widespread coral bleaching across the world’s oceans. It also triggered large-scale droughts in many regions sensitive to El Niño.
According to the Nature Communications study, super El Niño events can alter surface soil moisture regimes in central South Asia, the western Amazon, East Africa and central Australia, leading to long-term droughts.
“Surface soil moisture in central Australia shifted from drought to wet conditions after the 1997/98 super El Niño, with mean values changing from approximately −20 mm to 40 mm. Following the 2015/16 super El Niño event, the region experienced another shift from wet to dry conditions,” the paper noted.
The study also found that while regular El Niño events generate only weak and localised changes in SSTs and surface air temperatures (SATs), super El Niño events “produce widespread and coherent enhancements in CRS probabilities”.
Hotspots for SST regime shifts include the central and western North Pacific, the southeastern Indian Ocean, the southwestern Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Atlantic. For SATs, the hotspots are in East Africa, South America and the Maritime Continent.