The Blog

Niño 1+2 hit +3.0°C and Niño 3 reached +1.8°C in the week centered July 22, while Niño 3.4 held at +1.4°C and Niño 4 fell to +0.3°C. The east-west contrast is widening. What the shape of an El Niño tells you, the atmospheric and subsurface evidence beside it, and four reasons not to over-read it.

Reporting says El Niño could push one month past 2°C of warming for the first time, with 35 to 40 percent odds in early 2027. A real possibility, and not a Paris breach. The arithmetic, the lag, the dataset problem, and the two very different numbers this coverage keeps setting side by side.

El Niño shear has the Atlantic forecast down to nine storms, and the season's second one still peaked at 60 mph and hit the Gulf Coast twice. Why both things are true at once, the wind shear numbers behind the forecast cuts, and the Niño 3.4 figure the coverage keeps getting wrong.

A weeklong frontal system has killed at least 13 people, cut off more than 100,000, and dropped rare rain on Chile's arid north. What the El Niño teleconnection actually does, why 15 years of megadrought made it worse, and where single-storm attribution ends.

Peru cut its first-season anchovy quota 36 percent and repeatedly suspended fishing. Hydro-dependent aluminum smelters face a clearly defined exposure if El Niño suppresses rainfall. One climate driver, two distinct physical pathways. Educational, not a trade call.

The Panama Canal Authority has begun a three-step reduction in maximum Neopanamax draft on the strength of an El Niño forecast, with cuts scheduled for July 24 and August 15. What a draft cut actually does, why it is not a repeat of 2023-24, and the escalation that would change that.

The drought map is red, but the rain gauges are split. A region-by-region read on El Niño drought risk versus what CHIRPS actually shows, from Brazil's Nordeste to India, with the catastrophic 1876-79 Great Drought as calibrated context and a plain rule: risk is not outcome.

How El Niño prediction actually works: dynamical versus statistical models, the historic Zebiak-Cane model, which systems have the best track record, and what a multi-model plume can and cannot promise. Plus what one independent 14-model synthesis says about 2026.

Sea surface temperature is only half of El Niño. The Southern Oscillation Index is the atmospheric half, and as of July 20 the 30-day value sits at -27.87, far below the -7 threshold. Here is what that number does, and does not, tell you about how strong 2026's event will get.

Indonesia's fire season started early and a scary nickname is spreading faster than the smoke. The no-hype version: where "Godzilla" came from, the burned-area and hotspot numbers that are actually measurable, and why a possible positive Indian Ocean Dipole is the key variable to watch.

Florida's reefs are already bleaching in mid-July, NOAA Coral Reef Watch has Alert Level 1 posted for the Florida Keys, and a strengthening El Niño is loading the dice. The falsifiable version, anchored on the degree heating week numbers that will confirm or refute a severe season.

Edition 1 of our Friday commodity roundup. Cocoa and coffee climbed, sugar eased anyway, Australia forecast wheat production 26 percent below last season, and Peru's anchovy fleet is still tied up with IFFO-reported fishmeal output down 26 percent. What's priced in, what's actual, and what to watch.

Diesel is up 58 percent, jet fuel 106 percent, and a very strong El Niño is forecast for the same months. Farming runs on diesel, so here's the intersection: irrigation pumps, hydropower, shipping, fertilizer. Built only from numbers nobody's press office controls.

The World Bank's rice output warning is making headlines this week. The number is real, but conditional, and the last El Niño showed the biggest price risk is policy, not weather. Here's the careful read.

The UN said Monday it is ready to release up to $100 million from its emergency fund on the strength of the El Niño forecast, with $20 million already out the door. Here are the NOAA numbers behind that bet, and the fine print that comes with them.

While the world debates the winter forecast, Peru has already endured deadly flooding and a fatal flood-rescue helicopter crash. Lima's record summer heat and a suspended anchovy fishery round out what's measured, not modeled.

9 named storms, 4 hurricanes, 1 major, if it verifies. El Niño-driven wind shear is the primary reason. Tropical Storm Arthur already proved a quiet forecast isn't a safe one.

An 81 percent probability turned into a near-certain headline in under a day. We traced the CPC bulletin through its syndication chain, plus what's already showing up in real-world data and decisions.

CPC's July 9 ENSO Diagnostic Discussion puts an 81 percent chance on a "very strong" El Niño by winter, and Bloomberg's already calling it the strongest in 75 years. Here's the discussion itself, numbers first, before the headline gets ahead of the data.

BOM made it official on June 16. The Murray-Darling Basin is already down to 46 percent capacity, and winter fire potential is elevated in parts of NSW. Here's the honest version, including the caveat CSIRO insists on: El Niño raises the odds, it doesn't decide the season.

India just posted a nationwide rainfall deficit of 39.8 percent for June, the fifth driest since 1901. IMD is calling for another below normal month in July. Here's the honest, sourced case for why El Niño is a plausible driver, and why the usual offset isn't showing up this year.

A rare triple-cyclone setup in April drove what one atmospheric scientist called the strongest westerly wind burst in over 50 years. Here's the mechanism, and why it echoes 1997 and 2015.

The Madden-Julian Oscillation can fire westerly wind bursts that push warm water east and launch downwelling Kelvin waves. How the two patterns interact, and why an active MJO in the right phase loads the dice.

The relative index strips background ocean warming out of the Niño 3.4 signal, and it tells a more measured story than the raw numbers. Where the two diverge in 2026, and which one belongs in a headline.

Not every commodity spike reaches the checkout. Which El Niño-sensitive crops actually move retail food prices, which get absorbed upstream, and how long the lag usually runs.

A standing overview of the developing event: what the indices show, what the forecasts say, and what has actually been observed rather than projected.

No crop has failed yet. But cocoa futures already moved, and a handful of other commodities are one bad rainy season away from following. Here's what's priced in and what would confirm it.

The event is declared and strengthening. But most Americans won't feel it until November. Here's the honest regional breakdown of what to expect, when, and how confident the science actually is.

Long before Niño 3.4 crosses a threshold, the real action is happening hundreds of feet down. Here's how Kelvin waves work, and what the current one is doing.

A heat dome is baking the central and eastern US. El Niño was declared June 11 and is building fast. The two things are not the same story. Here's why that distinction matters.

The Advisory dropped June 11. Niño 3.4 has since climbed to +1.7°C. The Atlantic is quiet. El Niño is one reason why. Here's the mechanism, the caveats, and what to watch through August.

Niño 3.4 is at +1.7°C and climbing. Here's every scheduled data release, threshold that matters, and global regional signal worth tracking as the 2026 El Niño builds toward its winter peak: U.S., Australia, East Africa, and India.

Everyone's tracking the Pacific. The WMO has flagged a second major climate pattern developing concurrently: a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. It co-occurred in 1997–98. Here's what it amplifies, what it offsets, and what it means for this event.

The June 11 CPC data shows a 1.3°C gap between the far eastern Pacific and the Niño 3.4 benchmark. That gap is the east-based fingerprint, and it's the most informative signal in the current dataset.

SST models scream record El Niño. RONI analogs say the atmospheric response, the part that actually drives your weather, may be more moderate. Here's the tension at the heart of the 2026 forecast.

NOAA, ECMWF, and CSU models now point to a 60%+ chance of a "very strong" El Niño by winter 2026-27. Here's what the subsurface data, RONI readings, and model ensembles actually show.