A weather analysis published around August 15, 2026, projected the developing El Niño toward unusually high strength before the 2026–27 Northern Hemisphere winter. Severe Weather Europe based its assessment on tropical Pacific sea-surface anomalies, subsurface heat, westerly wind patterns and long-range models, describing the event as already in a very strong phase.
The report said parts of the eastern Pacific were more than 5 degrees Celsius above normal, with localized anomalies exceeding 6 degrees. Over a broad area, temperatures had risen by more than 1.5 degrees during the preceding 30 days. The author’s plot using weekly Australian Bureau of Meteorology data indicated that the event had developed faster than the 2015–16 El Niño and was approaching that earlier episode’s peak strength.
A large downwelling Kelvin wave was identified as an important source of continuing warmth. In the upper 250 metres of the tropical Pacific, the analysis described subsurface anomalies above 9 degrees Celsius moving eastward and rising toward the surface. Such waves carry warm water from the western Pacific after westerly wind bursts and can reinforce surface warming as their heat emerges.
The wind signal was also presented as exceptional. Using ERA5 data covering 86 years, the author calculated that a broad part of the western and central equatorial Pacific recorded its strongest average low-level westerly anomalies for June and July, with nearby areas among the five strongest. Continued westerly winds could push more subsurface warmth east and sustain development toward winter.
El Niño changes tropical pressure and circulation through the Walker Cell, with lower pressure across the central and eastern tropical Pacific and higher pressure farther west. Those changes can influence jet streams, rainfall and seasonal pressure patterns far beyond the ocean. The report associated stronger events with a deeper Pacific trough, a stronger ridge over Canada, milder northern conditions and a more active storm track across the southern United States.
Those regional outcomes are expectations, not deterministic local forecasts. Seasonal signals describe shifts in probability across large areas; they do not establish the weather for a particular city or storm. The supplied source also represents one specialized interpretation and does not include a separate official declaration that the event had reached a universally defined “Super El Niño” threshold.
The evidence in the analysis supports rapid ocean warming and a substantial subsurface heat reservoir at that point in August. Its claims about a record peak and effects across the United States, Canada and Europe depend on forecasts that can change as the atmosphere and ocean evolve. Continued measurements of the main ENSO regions, wind anomalies and the Kelvin wave would therefore determine whether the projected historic trajectory persisted into autumn and winter.
