By admin 
(NEXSTAR) — El Niño is waiting in the wings. An updated forecast released by the National Weather Service on Thursday gave the climate phenomenon an 82% chance of taking over at some point between May and July.
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As the year goes on, the odds of an El Niño grow even higher. National forecasters say there’s a 96% chance of El Niño lasting through the winter, the season when it typically reaches peak strength.
As we wait for El Niño to officially begin, anticipation is building that we may see what’s called a “super El Niño.”
Very strong “super” El Niños are rare. There have only been four since 1950, with the last one occurring from 2015 to 2016.
The chance of seeing a super El Niño in 2026 has grown since last month’s climate update. There’s about a 35% probability the El Niño late this year will be “very strong,” a 25% chance it’ll be categorized as “strong” and about a 20% chance it will be “moderate.”
There’s an even smaller probability it will be “weak” or not form at all.
How strong the El Niño ends up being is determined by sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. The warmer the water, the stronger the El Niño.
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What would a super El Niño look like?
A super El Niño doesn’t automatically mean crazy storms or dangerous heat waves.
There’s actually a big misconception about what a “super” El Niño would mean. “Stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely,” the Climate Prediction Center said Thursday.
Essentially, it’s looking increasingly likely we’ll see the signature El Niño impacts, which include warm, dry winter weather in the northern half of the country, and a wetter, colder winter for the Southern states.
If El Niño starts in the summer, as it’s predicted to, it could also turbo-charge summer temperatures and contribute to heat waves.
A strong El Niño also could mean an especially quiet hurricane season in the Atlantic, but a stronger tropical storm season on the Pacific side.
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