NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center announced today that the latest La Nina is now officially over and has been replaced by neutral conditions, as has been long expected. The ocean conditions in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) are now expected to swing rapidly to the opposite phase, El Nino, with warmer than normal sea surface temperatures expected to dominate the EPO for the rest of 2026. This will likely cause 2026 to become the warmest year on record because of the combination of the warm pool and the rising temperature trend across the globe. The El Nino could occur as early as the May through July period and is expected to affect the number of tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin (see story on the tropical outlook). It could also mean fall, especially late fall, could be fairly wet as El Nino winters tend to be wetter and cooler than usual in the Southeast due to the presence of a strong jet stream steering rain-producing storms over the region during the winter months.
While some media outlets have been hyping the possibility of a “Super El Nino” occurring this year, CPC gives this only a one in four chance and suggests a moderate to strong El Nino is more likely. This is based on the fact that the models forecasting the exceptionally warm ocean temperatures needed to generate a Super El Nino are known to overpredict ocean temperature rises in the spring, so while a very strong El Nino could occur, it is not at all certain.
