Climate News

NOAA raises El Niño odds to 82%, with a 37% chance of a 'very strong' event

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center now sees an 82% chance that El Niño conditions develop during May–July 2026, and a 96% chance that they persist through the northern-hemisphere winter of 2026/27. That is a sharp rise from the 61% it gave in April. The chance of a "very strong" event is put at 37%, Japan's agricultural research centre JIRCAS reported in its summary of the 14 May update.

The Pacific is still officially classed as ENSO-neutral, because the ocean and atmosphere have not yet started to reinforce each other strongly. But sea surface temperatures from the eastern to the central equatorial Pacific are above average, and warm water below the surface has been building for six months in a row. Brazil's Portal Amazônia, tracking NOAA's forecasts through the year, recorded the key Niño 3.4 temperature at +0.4C, just short of the +0.5C El Niño threshold.

NOAA itself cautions that a strong El Niño does not automatically mean strong impacts; regional outcomes depend on the season and on atmospheric circulation.

How each outlet framed it

• JIRCAS — risk management: what the forecast means for crops, water and disaster planning.
• Portal Amazônia — the long view: from a La Niña advisory in January to rising El Niño odds in May.

What happened next: according to Portal Amazônia's timeline, NOAA issued an El Niño advisory on 11 June, declaring that El Niño had formed.