In a remote stretch of the western Pacific Ocean, far from major cities and daily headlines, the atmosphere has begun to behave in a way that worries climate scientists. For the second time in as many months, an exceptionally strong westerly wind burst surged across the tropics in January, breaking strength records and nudging the planet closer to a full-fledged El Niño. According to reporting and analysis from the Washington Post, this is one of the clearest early signals yet that a global climate shift is gathering momentum beneath the ocean’s surface.
These bursts of wind, blowing from west to east near New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea, are not just meteorological curiosities. They act as a powerful shove to the Pacific Ocean, pushing vast reservoirs of warm water away from the western Pacific and toward South America. That redistribution of heat is the engine of El Niño, a climate pattern that has far-reaching consequences for temperatures, rainfall, storms and ecosystems across the globe.
New outlook data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts now indicates that El Niño is likely to emerge by summer. While its defining feature is warmer-than-average waters along the equatorial Pacific, its influence extends far beyond the tropics, altering jet streams, disrupting weather patterns and amplifying extremes from the Arctic to the Southern Ocean.
The last El Niño, which developed in 2023 and peaked around the start of 2024, played a major role in making 2024 the warmest year ever recorded globally. Scientists now warn that the next one could push the climate system even further, potentially setting the stage for a new round of record-breaking heat later this decade.
Climate models comparing global temperature anomalies from 2023 with projections through mid-2026 suggest the planet is entering a hotter baseline. As of February, forecasts indicate that early 2026 could already be warmer than 2023, implying that the period from 2026 to 2028 may be primed to challenge or surpass the temperature records set in 2024. According to Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this is a direct consequence of how El Niño releases heat stored in the oceans into the atmosphere.
That heat originates largely from the Western Pacific Warm Pool, a vast area of exceptionally warm ocean water that set temperature records in 2025. Last year marked the ninth consecutive year in which global ocean heat content reached a new high, a signal of how much excess energy the planet is absorbing. Trenberth notes that global temperatures tend to peak about three months after El Niño itself reaches maximum strength, which could make 2027 a critical year for monitoring new global heat records.
Eric Webb, a meteorologist with the Defense Department, describes this process as an upward “stairstep” in global temperatures. Each major El Niño releases a pulse of ocean heat, but rising greenhouse gas concentrations prevent the climate system from fully shedding that energy before the next event arrives. The result is a steadily climbing temperature baseline rather than a return to previous norms.
In the United States, the effects of El Niño are often felt through shifts in storms, temperatures and hurricane activity. As equatorial Pacific waters warm, tropical rainfall and thunderstorm patterns change, sending ripple effects through the atmosphere via altered jet streams. These long-distance connections, known as teleconnections, are how conditions in the Pacific end up shaping weather over North America.
Meteorologist Andy Hazelton says the developing pattern points toward a less active Atlantic hurricane season later this year, a common El Niño outcome. Webb agrees that activity could be reduced compared with recent hyperactive seasons, though he cautions that preparedness remains essential. Exceptionally warm Atlantic waters can override El Niño’s suppressing influence, as seen in 2025, when near-record ocean heat helped three hurricanes rapidly intensify to Category 5 strength.
El Niño can also influence severe weather inland. In an average year, the United States sees roughly 1,200 tornadoes, mainly from March to June. El Niño conditions tend to reduce spring tornado activity in parts of the southern Plains and Mid-South, while sometimes increasing tornado frequency in the Deep South due to jet stream shifts. Onset years can also bring heightened June activity across the northern and central Plains. With La Niña fading and El Niño building this spring, forecasters say it remains uncertain which pattern will dominate severe weather in the near term.
Temperature trends are already tilting warmer. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects elevated odds of above-average temperatures through April across the Southwest, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, reflecting the push and pull between a waning La Niña and a strengthening El Niño.
El Niño and La Niña are the most powerful drivers of year-to-year climate variability on Earth, but they do not operate like simple switches. They behave more like dimmers, gradually intensifying or weakening and sometimes overlapping during transitions. This makes their impacts harder to communicate and predict, particularly during periods of climatic tug-of-war.
Before an El Niño can be measured or named, it has to form, and that process often begins with westerly wind bursts. Under normal conditions, trade winds blow from east to west across the tropical Pacific, piling warm water near the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. A westerly wind burst reverses that pattern for weeks at a time, pushing warm water eastward and setting the stage for El Niño’s development.
These winds generate massive, slow-moving ocean waves known as Kelvin waves, which carry warm water beneath the surface across the Pacific. Unlike crashing surf, Kelvin waves move more like water sloshing in a bathtub, as NOAA scientist Michelle L’Heureux explains. A burst in December spawned one such wave, now traveling a few hundred feet below the surface, and the January event is expected to reinforce it with another surge of warmth.
Kelvin waves typically take two to three months to cross the ocean. Forecast models suggest this warm water will reach the eastern Pacific near Peru and Ecuador in February and March, with global weather impacts gradually intensifying after that. According to the Washington Post, the strengthening signals beneath the Pacific are now too strong to ignore, pointing toward an El Niño that could once again reshape the planet’s climate — and test just how much heat the Earth can absorb before crossing another historic threshold.
