What to know about the predictions for a potentially record-breaking El
Nino
[May 09, 2026]
By JENNIFER McDERMOTT
Seasonal models are predicting an El Nino climate pattern that could be
the strongest on record, bringing with it more extreme weather.
“I think we’re going to see weather events that we’ve never seen in
modern history before,” WFLA-TV Chief Meteorologist and Climate
Specialist Jeff Berardelli, in Tampa, Florida, said Friday.
An El Nino event is expected to develop from the middle of this year,
impacting global temperature and rainfall patterns, according to the
World Meteorological Organization. While the models indicate that this
may be a strong event, the WMO cautioned that the models also have a
harder time making accurate forecasts in the spring.
What El Nino is
El Nino is a cyclical and natural warming of patches of the equatorial
Pacific that then alters the world’s weather patterns. Its counterpart,
La Nina, is marked by waters that are cooler than average.
Berardelli said an El Nino event essentially redistributes heat on
Earth. Currently, the subsurface heat in the Pacific is moving east
across the ocean and ascending to the surface from the deep waters, the
initial stages of El Nino.
The WMO's Global Seasonal Climate Update showed that sea-surface
temperatures are rising rapidly. There is high confidence in the onset
of El Nino, followed by further intensification in the months to follow,
according to Wilfran Moufouma Okia, chief of climate prediction at WMO.
El Nino typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts around nine
to 12 months, WMO said.
Why it’s causing alarm
It looks like the predictive models are onto something, said California
Institute for Water Resources climate scientist Daniel Swain. That is
because the volume and the intensity of the subsurface warm water
anomalies — or pulses of unusually warm water that are a key part of El
Nino physics— are about as large as we’ve seen in the historical record,
he added.
The very strongest events are called “super El Ninos.”
“One of the key building blocks to make it fully materialize is, in
fact, occurring,” Swain said Friday. “We still don't know exactly what's
going to happen. It's not guaranteed it'll be a super El Nino. But the
potential is there for something genuinely remarkable.”
If the Pacific releases a lot of heat, it supercharges the climate
system and wreaks havoc weather-wise, Berardelli said. With more heat,
there will be stronger heat waves, worsening drought in some areas, but
also more moisture in the air that leads to more intense floods, he
said.
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People walk through a part of the Amazon River that shows signs of
drought in Santa Sofia, on the outskirts of Leticia, Colombia, Oct.
20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)
 El Nino also subdues the hurricane
season in the Atlantic because there is so much heat in the Pacific
that outcompetes the Atlantic, Berardelli added. Places like the
Caribbean will be extra dry this summer and likely have fewer
tropical systems, he said.
Where we may see the impacts
El Nino has global impacts. Across the United States, it looks like
this summer will be hotter than normal, with significant heat waves,
Berardelli said. While the specifics are hard to pinpoint this far
out, Berardelli is also expecting to see more frequent daily
thunderstorms in the Southwest U.S.
Forest degradation, driven by wildfires, logging and drought,
affects about 40% of the Amazon. This could be exacerbated in 2026
with a strong El Nino.
The excess heat brought to the surface by El Nino, combined with the
planet's warming due to climate change, will lead to record-breaking
global warmth, Swain said. He expects to see record global warm
temperatures later this year, next year or both.
“All indicators are, at this point, that the next year is going to
be a pretty wild year from a global climate perspective,” Swain
said.
Michael Mann, a University of Pennsylvania climate scientist, said
that while El Nino boosts global temperatures a bit for a year or
two, it’s basically a “zero-sum game." It typically oscillates back
toward La Nina, which in turn lowers global temperatures for a year
or two, he added. The thing to worry about is the longer-term,
steady warming trend that will continue as long as people continue
to burn fossil fuels, Mann said Friday.
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Associated Press News Director Peter Prengaman contributed to this
report.
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