Today marks A KEY date in the El Niño story, what we know so far

Today is a genuinely significant date in the ongoing El Niño story.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center releases its ENSO Diagnostic Discussion on the second Thursday of every month.

That update is due out today, 10 September.

what the numbers actually mean

As of the most recent confirmed data, there’s a greater than 90% chance of a very strong El Niño this fall and winter, and a 69% chance this becomes the strongest event on record since at least 1950.

That 69% figure is based on a technical measure called the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI).

This needs to hit +2.5°C or higher across October to December 2026 to count as exceeding every previous El Niño on record.

For comparison, the four strongest events ever recorded by this same measure sit at 2.26 (November 1902-January 1903), 2.26 (October-December 1997), 2.23 (October-December 1877), and 2.20 (November 2015-January 2016).

Separately, NOAA’s official probability that El Niño persists through the entire 2026-27 winter now sits at effectively 100%.

This holds for every three-month period through to March 2027, and still 97% through into early spring.

why strength alone doesn’t tell the whole story

Here’s a nuance worth understanding: strong El Niño events don’t automatically produce identical impacts.

The 1997-98 event triggered enormous flooding in California, while the 2015-16 event, despite similarly extreme ocean temperatures, ended up less wet for the same region simply because storm tracks shifted further north that year.

There’s also a modern twist previous El Niño events didn’t have to contend with.

This year’s event is developing on top of roughly 1.3°C of existing global warming.

That background condition changes how the event interacts with land temperatures and moisture in the atmosphere.

It could potentially make its real-world impacts more extreme, even at a comparable ocean-temperature strength.

I’ll be honest, following these monthly updates almost feels like waiting on election results at this point. Today’s discussion should give us the clearest picture yet of just how extreme this season is actually shaping up to be, hey.

Are you noticing any early signs of El Niño’s impact where you live yet?