10/19/2026
WHO IS READY TO MOVE TO FLORIDA!! Call me
NOAA's Official Winter Outlook: Super El Niño Is
Coming - 83% Chance of the Strongest Event Since 1950
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its official Winter 2026-27 outlook Thursday, projecting a near-record
"super El Niño" event with an 83% probability of exceeding every El Niño since records began in 1950, with the dominant winter pattern bringing wetter-than-average conditions across the southern United States from California to Florida and up the Eastern Seaboard, warmer-than-average temperatures across the Pacific Northwest and northern United States, and substantial drought relief for the Southwest and southern Great Plains, according to NOAA and CNN/ABC17News. Equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures are currently about 2.3°C above average, with some pockets near 4°C-levels that historically produce the intense Southern storm track and heavy snowfall in the Sierra Nevada and Rockies that skiers and water managers have been anticipating.
NOAA forecasts the event to peak in December. The warmer, wetter-than-average pattern is expected to persist through early spring 2027. NOAA Director Ken Graham warned communities across the southern United States to prepare for a wet winter with potential for unusually heavy rains and mountain snows. Drought relief is expected across much of the Southwest, East, and Southern Great Plains.
The Super El Nino is good news and potentially dangerous news simultaneously. California desperately needs the precipitation after drought years - the reservoirs and snowpack matter for a state of 40 million people. The same atmospheric pattern that fills California's reservoirs also produces Atmospheric Rivers and flooding rains that overwhelm drainage systems, trigger mudslides, and damage infrastructure. "Above average precipitation" in an El Niño year does not mean distributed, gentle rainfall. It means concentrated, intense storms arriving rapidly. The southern states facing "stormier and cooler" conditions too.
