Now a More Than 60% Chance Strengthening El Niño Becomes "Historic," NOAA Says

There is now a 69% chance that the ongoing El Niño qualifies as a historic event this fall or early winter and surpasses records dating back to 1950, according to the latest update from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, which publishes reports on the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

The CPC said that there is also a more than 90% chance El Niño meets the criteria for “very strong.”

The update comes amid buzz around what’s been described as a “Super” El Niño. While the CPC doesn’t use the nontechnical term “Super,” it refers to an El Niño that is, well, really big. And this one is looking like it’ll hit that mark.

El Niño and its sibling La Niña are two opposite phases of the ENSO pattern, each occurring, respectively, when sea surface temperatures go warm or cold in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. They can contribute to documented weather patterns in North America and around the world.

Meteorologists consider this flip-flopping a useful—but by no means clairvoyant—tool for anticipating seasonal weather patterns in advance. 

As for El Niño, it’s associated with a juiced-up southern jet stream, meaning greater odds of more precipitation across the southern U.S. In the north, warmer and sometimes drier conditions are part of the historic pattern. El Niño’s effects on North America are most pronounced in the winter.

For skiers, this has drawn attention to California’s Sierra Nevada and ski resorts across the Southwest, which might see more powder days provided freezing levels don’t climb too high. 

This outcome isn’t guaranteed. But “With an event of this magnitude, the chances of experiencing impacts consistent with El Niño are larger,” the CPC’s update reads.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist for the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources group, also cautioned against “sensational headlines” that suggested California was headed for its wettest winter ever. 

“That’s something that we just can’t know,” he said in a recent video. 

At the same time, Swain said, “The odds of having a very wet winter or perhaps even a record wet winter in some places is much higher than it would be at baseline.” 

OpenSnow, a forecasting team popular among skiers, put the best odds of above-average snowfall in an area over the Sierra Nevada, Arizona, Utah, parts of Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. A band from Washington and Western Canada to the Northeast, meanwhile, is set for below-average snow, according to the forecast, which looked at other factors beyond El Niño that can impact how a given winter shakes out.

Alan Smith, a meteorologist for OpenSnow, broke the winter preview down, offering, like Swain, a caveat. “Seasonal forecasts are interesting, but you should always take them with a grain of salt,” he said. There’s always going to be factors that “we can’t predict months or even weeks in advance.”

Smith added that with the potentially record-setting El Niño, there could be some surprises.

Related: The Weight of the Turn