NOAA - Super El Nino Now Most Likely Outcome For October-February 27 Period; Could Surpass Record From 150 Years Ago

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A "super" El Niño is now the most likely scenario from October 2026 to February 2027, according to a new forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center. El Niño is the warmer phase of the natural El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycle, a periodic shift in the waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean that supercharges global temperatures, in turn impacting weather patterns and crops worldwide.

Now, in a new ENSO forecast published May 14, NOAA estimates that there's a 65% chance that the upcoming El Niño will be classified as strong or very strong starting in October, potentially placing it among the strongest in recorded history.

A "very strong" El Niño — meaning a 3.6-degree-Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) rise in sea surface temperatures, and unofficially called a "super" El Niño — is now the most probable scenario for the October-to-February period. There is also now an 82% chance that El Niño will arrive between now and July, with the phase looking highly likely to continue until February 2027. This is a roughly 20 percentage-point increase in certainty from NOAA's April forecast that El Niño is right around the corner.

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If a "super" El Niño does occur, it could rival the strongest on record: a catastrophic 1877 event that spurred the 1876-to-1878 global famine. The famine killed over 50 million people, or 3% of the world's population at the time. Although the social, political and economic landscapes have changed since the 1877-to-1878 El Niño, the upcoming event could still seriously threaten food, water and economic security around the world, Deepti Singh, head of the Climate Extremes and Impacts Lab at Washington State University, told The Washington Post.

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https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/weather/the-biggest-el-nino-event-since-the-1870s-super-el-nino-is-now-the-most-likely-scenario-by-the-end-of-this-year-and-the-humanitarian-cost-could-be-huge?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us