Odds of Historic Super El Niño Increase

Odds Increase Again for Historic Super El Niño by Fall

El Niño behaves like a temperamental child, and the tantrums cross oceans, hitting every continent downstream. The name comes from Spanish-speaking fishermen who noticed warm currents arriving each year near Christmas and called the pattern for the Christ child, a reference for a system with the power to upend weather across the world. When El Niño escalates, the disruption escalates alongside, and this year's version stands to reach a scale rarely recorded.

The odds of a historically strong El Niño developing by fall increased again this week, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. The agency's latest update, released Thursday, puts the chance of this year's event ranking among the strongest on record at 81 percent, up from 63 percent in the June outlook. The Climate Prediction Center also gives the pattern a 97 percent chance of persisting through the remainder of the year. For farmers, ranchers, and reservoir managers along the Rio Grande, those numbers land closer to home than a distant statistic.

El Niño describes a natural warming of ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific, thousands of miles from the Rio Grande, though the effects still reach South Texas whenever the pattern strengthens. The event alters atmospheric circulation and shapes weather patterns worldwide. The pattern recurs every two to seven years and typically peaks during the Northern Hemisphere winter, when the effects on U.S. weather grow most pronounced. Moderate El Niño conditions are already present in the central Pacific, according to NOAA.

Colorado State University, which produces one of the most closely watched Atlantic hurricane season forecasts, lowered the seasonal outlook again this week. Researchers cited the high likelihood of El Niño strengthening to peak intensity during the climatological high point of hurricane season, spanning mid-August to mid-October. El Niño conditions typically suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic and Caribbean while increasing storm development in the central and eastern Pacific, raising the risk of tropical systems reaching Hawaii and the Southwest.

Meteorologists use the term Super El Niño to describe events in which sea surface temperatures in the Niño-monitored region of the Pacific rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above average. This threshold has been reached only a handful of times since 1950. The most recent Super El Niño, in 2015 and 2016, remains the strongest in NOAA's historical record. Several international forecasting models now project this year's event surpassing the 1982-83 benchmark, with a majority of model ensembles indicating sea surface temperatures exceeding the record set during the earlier event.

Forecasters caution model projections carry uncertainty, and even a strong or exceptionally strong El Niño offers no guarantee of specific regional outcomes. During the 2015-2016 Super El Niño, the Caribbean experienced the severe drought typically associated with the pattern, while Southern California missed the wetter-than-average winter forecasters had expected.

Every county in Texas has a stake in this forecast, including the Rio Grande Valley. El Niño winters generally bring more moisture to the state, and Joel Lisonbee, the southern plains regional drought information coordinator for NOAA, has said this year's pattern stands to ease the state's longstanding drought. Lisonbee has cautioned a handful of strong storms will fail to resolve years of water deficit on their own. Reservoirs need sustained rainfall and rising stream flow to recover, rather than a single wet season. Falcon Reservoir, the international lake sitting in Starr County's own backyard, held only 13.2 percent of conservation capacity as of late March, according to the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council. Combined with Amistad Reservoir upriver, the U.S. share of storage sat at 25.74 percent, an improvement from 21.13 percent a year earlier but still far below the levels farmers along the river consider healthy. Current long-range forecasts still show drier conditions persisting across West Texas even as other parts of the state see relief. Any improvement also sits several months away. Texas remains in the middle of a hot, dry summer, and the El Niño moisture-heavy pattern typically waits until fall and winter to take hold.

North Texas offers the clearest historical reference point for how far a Super El Niño swings the state's weather, though South Texas remembers the last dry stretch well. During the 2015-2016 Super El Niño, North Texas saw significantly above-normal rainfall, with more than 13 inches falling over a three-month period at the event's peak. Across the full ENSO record for Dallas-Fort Worth, 11 of the 21 wettest years occurred during El Niño periods. The pattern includes exceptions. The summer of 2023 ranked as the fourth hottest on record in Dallas-Fort Worth despite El Niño conditions, showing the wetter trend applies mainly to winter rather than the season as a whole.

NOAA researchers have also noted a newer measurement, the Relative Oceanic Niño Index, tracks Texas winter precipitation more closely than the traditional index in recent years. The 2023-24 El Niño showed strong readings under the older index but produced a weaker rainfall response than expected. Forecasters say the newer index offers a more accurate picture of what Texas stands to expect this time.

Beyond Texas, certain impacts remain consistent across most El Niño forecasts for the coming winter. Warmer-than-average temperatures are expected from the northern United States through western Canada and Alaska. A more active jet stream is expected to bring increased precipitation across the southern tier of the country, including Texas, raising the risk of flooding during major winter storms. Globally, El Niño years tend to push already elevated temperatures higher, a dynamic scientists say is compounded this year by a warming trend predating the current event. Researchers monitoring ocean temperatures have noted this year's warming is occurring at a faster rate, at this point in the season, than during the 2015 and 1997 Super El Niño years.

Scientists note no previous Super El Niño has developed against a global climate baseline as warm as the current one, adding a layer of uncertainty to how this year's event compares to past records.

A temperamental child does not warn anyone before the tantrum starts. Along the Rio Grande, all anyone can do is wait to see which version of El Niño shows up, the one that floods the ground or the one that leaves it dry.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

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