NASA says the 2026 El Niño is on track to be even bigger

NASA said Friday 23 October 2026 that the current El Niño rivals the very strong events of 1997-98 and 2015-16. Those events altered weather patterns worldwide. The 1997-98 event brought fires in Indonesia and the Amazon, crop failures linked to drought in southern Africa, and heavy rain and coastal flooding in Southern California.

NOAA's El Niño outlook on October 8, 2026, called for an 83 percent chance of a strong-to-very strong El Niño through the first three months of 2027. NASA said the exact impacts in winter 2026-27 and beyond remain uncertain because El Niño's signal can become muddled beyond the tropics.

Satellite sea surface height maps depict conditions on October 13, 1997, and October 12, 2026. The data came from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite and the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. NASA scientists at JPL processed the data, which showed higher sea levels across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.

Josh Willis, project scientist for sea level missions at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said altimetry satellites provide a 35-year record from nearly identical satellites. The record allows scientists to compare the current event with 1997. Willis said the 2026 El Niño is on track to be even bigger.

NASA said the 2026 event began much more suddenly than the 1997-98 event. As of October, their sea level patterns and the reach of warm water toward South America appeared similar. Willis said the impacts could also be similar, including heavy rain in California and across the southern tier of the U.S.

The 2015-16 event differed because exceptionally warm, high water along the equator did not reach South America as extensively. Its rainfall impacts focused more on Central America and the southeastern U.S., with significant flooding in Mexico. Willis said the comparison with 1997 was NASA's best estimate and did not mean the outcomes would be exactly the same.