2026’s Super El Niño

By:Jared Ogawa

You may be wondering why the weather is so unpredictable lately. The main reason for this is that there's an El Nino occurring around the world. An El Nino is a powerful climate pattern that comes around every 2-7 years.  It disrupts the weather around the world, causing extreme changes to the environment and people around it.  El Nino weakens trade winds, which causes warm pacific water to move up east. This causes ocean temperatures to rise, meaning weather patterns change. However, this year’s El Nino has been explicitly powerful and unpredictable due to an event called La Nina.  Ocean temperatures in the Pacific have risen over 3° Fahrenheit due to this occurrence.

La Nina is essentially the opposite of El Nino. Instead of trade winds weakening, La Nina is a phenomenon where trade winds strengthen, causing warm water to be pushed west. In North America, this will most likely cause a cooler and wetter winter and spring. This event will also cause more Atlantic hurricanes. La Nina often causes certain areas to have more rain, while other areas would have warmer and drier climates.

This unusual weather pattern of events has had major impacts on people and the environment. Unpredictable changes can affect wildlife, farming, and our water supplies. Since there will be much more droughts in some areas, the chances of wildfires have increased in these dry areas.  These conditions will likely persist through next spring. We haven't had an El Nino this strong for over seventy-five years. Scientists are predicting that in later months, this event will be historic.

Sources: Link 1 Link 2 Link 3