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First modification: 05/01/2026 - 16:24

No meteorological agency officially uses the term “super” to describe the El Niño phenomenon. Instead, specialized institutions classify its intensity into different categories that go up to “very strong”, a possibility that some models contemplate for the summer of this year, although it is still too early to predict its magnitude with precision.

2026 could mark the beginning of one of the most powerful El Niño events in recent decades. Various meteorological services warn that it is very likely that the phenomenon will begin in the middle of the year, with an intensity that would range between moderate and very strong.

So far, the chances are 61% that this phenomenon will begin between May and July, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists agree that the event is certain to occur this year, but that its final magnitude remains uncertain. Cristina Recalde, scientist at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, explained to France 24 that the organization has four measures of El Niño intensity between weak, moderate, strong and very strong.

And so far, each intensity is equally likely.

"Right now there is a probability of one in four that a very strong event will develop. And that probability is the same for the different categories," explained Recalde.

Despite scientific caution, many headlines are already warning about a “super Child.” However, it is important to note that neither the World Meteorological Organization, nor the European Copernicus agency, nor NOAA use that adjective.

"The Climate Prediction Center builds these categories very carefully, based on models and probabilities. The best way to convey this message is through these categories of weak, moderate, strong and very strong El Niño, because sometimes perhaps the term 'super' can imply other things," Recalde clarified.

Climate Prediction Center animation of ocean temperature

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The Copernicus Climate Change Service also does not use that term. “The definition of “super” El Niño is not a scientific definition, it is a definition of journalists,” Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, which belongs to the European Union, explained to France 24.

Although Copernicus also points out that there is a probability that this year's phenomenon will be very strong, Bountempo clarifies that it is still too early to know for sure.

The great challenge of meteorology today is the spring predictability barrier. This means that data collected in spring is often volatile and can change dramatically come summer.

"Basically, the forecasts made before May are not as reliable as those made at the beginning of summer. It is an issue that has a lot to do with the thermal structure of the ocean, which somewhat hides the real state of the ocean. There is a surface layer that means that the models cannot really see what the ocean is like at depth. And the effect on the atmosphere, clearly, depends a lot on the surface temperature of the ocean," he noted.

This implies that the models will be much more accurate at the beginning of May and, even better, at the beginning of June, when that layer will no longer have the impact it has had until now.

What is the El Niño Phenomenon?

Its full name is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation Phenomenon, known as ENSO by its Spanish acronym. This is a cycle with three phases: La Niña, associated with cold times depending on the region of the world; El Niño, which translates into high temperatures and the neutral phase, which currently governs.

Specifically, El Niño triggers when the trade winds weaken, allowing the surface of the Pacific to warm unusually. Additionally, this reverses atmospheric pressures between the eastern and western hemispheres in the tropics.

In other words, the atmospheric pressure, which, for example, in the Australian city of Darwin is usually low, during El Niño is higher than normal; while the opposite occurs on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, where the pressure drops drastically.

This El Niño thermal dance begins when the threshold of 0.5 degrees Celsius is exceeded in the central Pacific. If this figure climbs above 2 degrees – as happened between 1982 and 1983, 1998 and 2015 – we enter the “very strong” category.

In 2024 there was also an El Niño Phenomenon, but its magnitude ranged between moderate and strong. Still, it contributed to that year being the hottest on record, as noted by Copernicus. Along those same lines, if 2026 has an even more powerful Niño, a new record for the planet's temperatures could be broken.

"If it does not happen in 2026, it will almost certainly be in 2027, because we know that the impact of El Niño on the global average temperature has a delay of a few months. I think it is likely that we will have another record in 2027," said Buontempo.

This will depend largely on how the atmospheric pressures and temperatures of the Pacific behave. To measure it accurately, NOAA uses its renewed indicator. Previously, the Climate Prediction Center used the El Niño Ocean Index (ONI), which used as a basis the deviation from the 30-year average in sea surface temperature.

But from February 2026, they opted to use the Relative Oceanic El Niño Index (RONI), which compares a specific region of the Pacific to the global tropics.

“One of the reasons why NOAA decided to switch to this new index is because it apparently can better capture this phase of when the ocean and atmosphere couple, and we can try to predict with a little more certainty what the impacts related to ENSO would be, with respect to the entire Pacific Ocean,” explained Cristina Recalde.

The analysis will focus on observing the anomalies of a region of the Pacific known as 3.4 and it is that result that they compare with the rest of the ocean.

Does climate change affect El Niño?

Although it is early to predict what will happen with El Niño this year, its consequences are expected to be increasingly harsh due to climate change.

"The impacts of temperature and precipitation are going to be worse, because when the peak of El Niño arrives, it will arrive in a world that already has a much higher temperature and that is why it can reach higher levels than previous phenomena. And, on the other hand, a warmer atmosphere also means a greater concentration of water vapor that can produce even stronger precipitation," Buontmepo said.

In other words, there is no certainty that climate change is to blame for El Niño being more frequent, but there is evidence that a warmer planet is the perfect fuel for the effects of this phenomenon to be more extreme.

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