NOAA Predicts Strong El Niño Likely Through Winter 2026-27, With 96% Chance

NOAA scientists are predicting a strong El Niño is likely to emerge soon and continue through the winter of 2026-27, with an 82% chance in the next 2-3 months and a 96% chance by December 2026 – February 2027.

“Meteorologist Jim Castillo and the KSBY weather team, along with numerous other scientists, are tracking what could become one of the strongest El Niño events on record, with the potential for significant implications for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties next winter”

KSBY News

The Los Angeles Times reports the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center said there is now a 96% chance the climate pattern will be in force this winter, and it also cites a 37% chance it will be “very strong” by the end of the year.

KSBY News

The Desert Sun similarly frames the outlook as a “Super” El Niño scenario that could reshape global weather, including potentially suppressing Atlantic hurricanes while boosting Pacific storms.

The Desert Sun adds that California may feel impacts as Pacific storm activity is expected to ramp up under El Niño conditions, with wetter-than-average winters raising the risk of flooding.

In the same reporting, the Desert Sun links the forecast to the way a stronger El Niño can alter the jet stream, shifting weather systems far beyond the tropics.

The Desert Sun says El Niño typically tilts the odds toward a wetter-than-average winter in California, with storm systems tracking farther south across the Pacific and increasing the chances for repeated rounds of rain.

It warns that that pattern can raise the risk of flooding, especially in Central and Southern California, where stronger Pacific storms can bring periods of heavy rainfall and runoff can build quickly.

Los Angeles Times

The Desert Sun also notes that during an active Pacific hurricane season, remnants of tropical systems can occasionally track north toward Southern California, sending bursts of tropical moisture into the region.

In parallel, the Los Angeles Times quotes Nathaniel Johnson, meteorologist with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, saying, “The tropics are changing quickly, so we have increasing confidence that we will transition to El Niño within the next couple of months.”

The Los Angeles Times also quotes climate scientist Zachary Labe of Climate Central, saying, “clearly, an El Niño is coming our way,” while describing El Niño as capable of reshaping global weather and affecting rainfall and drought.

The Los Angeles Times says strong El Niños can shift a subtropical jet stream that normally pours rain over southern Mexico and Central America toward California and the southern United States, increasing the likelihood of wet winters that replenish water supplies while also raising the risk of flooding and coastal erosion.

“Climate oscillations in the Pacific Ocean not only affect temperatures and rainfall”

Pour la Science

It adds that there have been only three “very strong” El Niños in the past half-century—1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16—and it recounts that early 1998 storms brought widespread flooding and mudslides, causing 17 deaths and more than half a billion dollars of damage in California.

The Desert Sun similarly warns that the risk of flooding is tied to how El Niño can bring intense downpours when tropical moisture interacts with seasonal heat or passing atmospheric disturbances, with events most likely to cause localized flash flooding in desert regions and burn scars.

In the same reporting, the Desert Sun emphasizes that warmer Pacific fuels storms that can impact California with heavy rain, and it forecasts that the 2026 Pacific hurricane season is expected to be more active than average.

Together, the two accounts frame the coming season as a high-stakes weather window for California, with NOAA’s forecast probabilities and the potential for “very strong” conditions by the end of the year shaping expectations for rainfall and storm impacts.