The developing El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has officially become the strongest such event on record and is expected to continue strengthening over the next few months. On Monday, WFLA-TV chief meteorologist Jeff Berardelli announced the record-breaking numbers for the current El Niño and included a graph showing the other strongest El Niño events on record in a post on X. "It’s official, the 2026 El Niño has broken a record for the highest ocean anomaly in 170+ years… Incredibly reaching that threshold a full 2 months ahead of 2015’s record of +3.02C set on Nov 18th," Berardelli posted.
Every other bold line are the strongest El Niño’s on record. 2026 is in a league of its own. We have two months left for this El Niño to continue to intensify. And it will." The new record comes three months after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that El Niño had developed in the tropical Pacific.
El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. It occurs on average once every three to five years and forms when equatorial Pacific temperatures are .5 degrees Celsius above average for several months in a row. A NOAA spokesperson told Newsweek on Monday that El Niño is expected to continue strengthening through November and December.
Even after it begins to weaken, impacts are expected across the U.S., with the strongest impacts most typically affecting the U.S. between December and March, the spokesperson said. Many independent meteorologists and other weather agencies have been referring to the current event as a super El Niño. Although NOAA refers to the climate pattern as “very strong,” both labels refer to an event in which waters are warmer than average, usually by around 2 degrees Celsius.
The current El Niño has already surged past that number. As of the most recent measurements shared by Berardelli, the current El Niño is 3.05 degrees Celsius above average and still climbing. "Advanced monitoring and an improved understanding of El Niño patterns allow the NWS to better predict and better prepare the public and our core partners for what is to come.” The warmer the waters, the greater the influence on weather.
El Niño can influence weather around the globe. In the U.S., it causes the most widespread impacts during the fall and winter months, when cooler, wetter conditions are experienced across the South, with warmer, drier conditions in the North. It can also influence the storm track, whether precipitation falls as snow or rain, and extreme cold spells.
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