An El Niño that could beat 1997’s record is taking shape in the Pacific, leaving scientists watching for its next move.
El Niño is part of a natural climate pattern that returns roughly every two to seven years. Its most recent very strong events, in 1997–98 and 2015–16, disrupted weather worldwide. Consequences included fires in Indonesia and the Amazon, crop failures caused by drought in southern Africa, and heavy rain and coastal flooding in Southern California.
Satellite measurements show that the current El Niño resembles the 1997–98 event, with warm water stretching across the equatorial Pacific to South America. But that oceanic resemblance does not guarantee the same weather during winter 2026–27, as the outcome also depends on how the atmosphere responds.
How El Niño Builds Momentum
Every El Niño starts with a change in the tropical Pacific’s winds. Trade winds normally push warm surface water westward, leaving sea levels higher in the western Pacific than in the east. When those winds weaken, warm water begins moving back toward the central and eastern Pacific.
As warmth spreads eastward, the trade winds weaken further and sometimes reverse, allowing still more warm water to follow. This feedback loop helps El Niño intensify.
But strength alone does not determine its effects. The location of the warmest water and the atmosphere’s response also shape the outcome. “The search for the ‘typical’ El Niño is very elusive,” said Josh Willis, project scientist for sea level missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “They’re all different in terms of where they land and how their impacts play out.”
Satellites Reveal the Ocean’s Heat
Scientists can track that developing pattern from space because warming water expands, raising the sea surface. Across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, unusually high water therefore provides a signal of El Niño’s heat buildup.
The maps compare sea surface height anomalies on October 13, 1997 (left), and October 12, 2026 (right). JPL scientists processed measurements from TOPEX/Poseidon and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, respectively. Red shows higher-than-average sea levels, white indicates normal conditions, and blue marks lower levels. Seasonal effects and long-term trends have been removed to highlight El Niño and other short-term natural changes.
“What’s unique about altimetry is that we have a 35-year record from nearly identical satellites flying almost the same ground track, with each mission overlapping the next,” Willis said. “That lets us look back in time and compare this El Niño to what happened in 1997. And right now, this one is on track to be even bigger.”
Why The 1997 Comparison Matters
Although the 2026 El Niño developed much more abruptly, by October it shared two defining features with 1997: lower sea levels in the west and higher levels in the east, with warm, elevated water reaching South America. Willis thinks that resemblance could translate into similar impacts, including the abundant rainfall seen across California and the southern United States in 1997–98.
The powerful 2015–16 event shows why the arrangement of that heat matters. A map based on Jason-2 measurements from October 12, 2015, appears alongside the 1997 and 2026 comparisons. In 2015, the exceptionally warm, high water along the equator did not reach as far against South America. That winter, rainfall effects were concentrated more over Central America and the southeastern United States, with significant flooding in Mexico.
NOAA’s October 8, 2026, El Niño outlook assigned an 83 percent chance of a strong to very strong event through the first three months of 2027. Still, its effects during winter 2026–27 and beyond remain uncertain. El Niño’s influence passes through a chaotic atmosphere, and its signal becomes harder to distinguish beyond the tropics.
“There’s always a bit of a dice roll here,” Willis said. “Just because this El Niño looks like 1997 doesn’t mean it will be exactly the same—it’s just our best guess at the moment.”
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A chance and a Plan for a new civilization of the Earth, based on New Knowledge about the Universe and on the pure consciousness of a liberated Man.
Colleagues! Neighbors on the planet! Today, New Knowledge about the structure of the universe has appeared on the planet! No one was looking for it or hiding it from us, it was just littered with the garbage of “titans of science who stood on each other’s shoulders and faithfully served the pharaohs and their religions!?”
Today, when the peoples of the planet and their elected rulers learn, understand, and feel the fateful Truth, as the very essence and meaning of the existence of the universe (the meaning that lies only in the very presence of Man in an empty, cold, different, like this motto: “A man of the Earth can also live forever!” But this isincomprehensible COSMOS), then all the prospects of Civilization and every human being – the purpose and meaning of every person’s life will instantly become possible only in an absolutely comfortable space, in an ideal society where time?) Our planet is back to normal! there is no hostility, weapons, enemies, borders, rivals, and there are only happy, full-fledged, exalted (ordinary!), friendly, dear builders of eternal civilization! We can get the status of “Eternal Civilization” in 20 years, as soon as we bring (will we have
Confirmations of my words (in various, simple ways) are all around us! And the information that Space is eternal, and the understanding that none of the billions of eternal space civilizations wants (or has the right to interfere with the maturation of our civilization on their own) to communicate with us, are also easily confirmed.
All the research and achievements of the ridiculous astrophysicists and physicists of the planet Have no value, because they have no real foundation!? And this despite the fact that every person on Earth, today and always, could create exactly the same miracles as Archimedes, Leonardo, Pushkin, Chopin, Beethoven, Tsiolkovsky!? And we sacredly honor all the falsifications of Newton (8 postulates about time), Einstein (relativity, the universe, time), Hawking (“A Brief History of Time”)!? An axiom, my obvious and understandable: “Eternal matter has long reached all the limits and laws of the universe, and eternal civilizations have long had all possible knowledge and have been enthusiastically and confidently creating miracles for a long time, always, everywhere!” Nevertheless, they will always be waiting for us with hope! Free, organized, and obedient to a desperate Mother -Earth. I will immediately remind you of my other axiom: “In the vastness of endl P.S. It’s scary to think, it’s a shame in front of gullible nations – such a simple and real human Dream was obscured (hidden) not only for all nations, but also for their geniuses!? Only the people (in this situation) are obliged and must discussess, free space, human death is a completely optional attribute of the living world”! This obvious, logical, optimistic message will give everyone only responsibility and peace of mind. I am sure that there is no sign anywhere in space that says “There is no entrance!”, “Impossible!”, “Impossible!”, “Closed forever!”.
their problems and make an accurate decision.
A second is a moment. To children! A second is a measure of life! What does a second measure? A second is an earthly, real measure with which we, at any moment we wish, can measure any episode of our life—its length, its beginning and end, and even its place on the “event tape” of that day, on the “tape of existence”! The place that I record every second (every second!), at any moment of the day, on the dial of a clock—a mechanism that, just as reliably and accurately, always measures every step on this part of the Earth, every moment of our lives, and also measures the static (standard) length of this rotation of the Earth (a day!), all its 86,400 parts (moments of existence), and arranges them not in a stack, not in a bag, not even in a file, but in a circular row on the clock’s dial—as a record of all the minutes and hours of the day—measures! And the big hand of the clock (at this moment!) points to the place in the day (the point, the moment of this day) where I (and the whole world!) am, where I am living now!.
A second is an empty, old word, a mistaken concept, because in the dark ages it measured not BEING, not life, but the “time” invented by the pharaohs and philosophers of Babylon — which, of course, was not real, visible, obvious, or understandable! If the measures “gram” or “meter” are real, obvious, understandable, and consistent in weight or length, then “second” has never even seen WHAT it measures, is not even familiar with the word “time,” and is not friends with anyone; it exists indifferently, uninterestingly, boringly—after all, it is a measure shaped, measured, and created by human hands?! An unnoticed, indispensable worker.
A second – it doesn’t rush, doesn’t hurry, doesn’t push, doesn’t drag on, doesn’t stretch, doesn’t accelerate; it’s not relative (doesn’t relate) to anything (just like a centimeter or a 1‑kilogram weight), it doesn’t fly, doesn’t have a direction or speed… just like the measures “minute,” “hour,” “day,” “year”! There is: her short, small length, which imperceptibly, non‑stop, and coolly measures, records, sets aside, and files every moment of life into the “minute” file. It doesn’t care whether a turtle is crawling or a bison is fleeing in fear. But it always informs every person, provides invaluable information: “You are not making it by the end of the day, by the deadline; you are running late!” A second measures existence, my sleep, all the events of the universe!
Here is the Truth: “A second is the measure of life!” It doesn’t get along with, isn’t even familiar with the empty word “time.” It is Man himself who assigns and uses it — the same measure to measure different (all) moments of life! Unlike the word “time” (an ancient fake created by power and religion), a second is material, real (and not just the mechanism of the alarm clock itself!), obvious, understandable; it can be filled with a clap, the sound of music, a voice, and even the Beat of the Heart (the prototype of a second), the pulse of a living person!
A second is a measure of life (of all episodes of life!) and a measure of this day! A measure of measuring a part, a segment of eternal existence. A second is a real, noticeable, obvious, eternal, static measure created by us to measure life: the life of a person, a planet, a country, a frog, a dolphin! A second is a measure of all events, activities, their duration, their beginning and end, their place in the queue, in the chaos, surrounded by other events on the “event timeline of this day”! This is how we get (have) a clear order of things and notice, mark (take into account!) The causes and effects of all phenomena and events, their “cause-and-effect” relationships! Only the quick-witted, hasty astrophysicists of the planet lack logic in their fabrication about the nature of the “singular point” of the Big Bang; they have neither a cause nor an explanation or understanding of the central falsification of their Theory of Everything!? Seconds add up, filling the measures: minute, hour, day (twenty‑four hours), and days (a day is the Earth’s rotation) fill the “files of life measurement”: week, month, year!
It is because of the mistakes made by these scientists that we, you and I, end up with the “MAIN QUESTION OF COSMOLOGY” from Wikipedia, and its main error: “How did the Universe come into being?”!??.. But this idea is precisely the cause of all the troubles on the planet, the reason for the emergence of millions of fake dissertations, publications, and theories from organized, powerful groups. After all, it is obvious and likely that the emptiness of space is ETERNAL, just like its adornment; the meaning and purpose of its existence a MAN — or, more precisely, humanity as a whole!