"Coming El Niño will be the strongest ever recorded, new forecast predicts"

From LiveScience, June 5:

A June update by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts suggests that the coming weather event will be the strongest ever measured. 

This year's brewing El Niño will likely become the strongest ever recorded, a new forecast warns.

New predictions by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) suggest sea surface temperatures in a key region of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean will climb 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) above average by December of this year, with some scenarios showing they could go above 7.2 F (4 C).

If the forecast bears out, it means that this year's El Niño — the warm phase of a multi-year natural climate pattern that supercharges temperatures across the globe — will be significantly stronger than the previous joint record holders of 2015 to 2016 and 1997 to 1998.

Those past two El Niño events sent temperatures in the Niño 3.4 index (which measures sea surface temperature anomalies between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south latitude, and 120 degrees west and 170 degrees west longitude) to 4.1 F (2.3 C) above average.

"Almost every scenario now reaches past +3˚C, with a cluster of high-end scenarios in excess of +4˚C," Ben Noll, a meteorologist and global weather writer at the Washington Post, wrote on the social platform X. "This outlook now depicts the strongest El Niño on record."....

....MUCH MORE 

The ECMWF is one of the better computer models for forecasting hurricanes. We'll see how it does with ENSO.

For comparison her is the prediction plume of statistical and dynamic computer models from IRI/Columbia last month:

El Niño: Columbia/IRI ENSO Forecast May 2026 Quick Look

The three sources we rely on for ENSO news are Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, Japan's "Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology" (JAMSTEC) and Columbia/IRI.

JAMSTEC defined the modoki flavor of El Niño which arises in the central rather than the eastern Pacific with the Japanese word meaning "similar but different", handy for dropping casually into conversation at the Thursday afternoon salon. 

First, a note on terminology for normal people who don't obsess about this stuff:

• ENSO = the El Niño/Southern Oscillation

• ENSO Neutral = the ocean surface temperature anomaly in the ENSO 3.4 region is between +0.5°C and -0.5°C.

• El Niño/La Niña conditions exist when the anomaly is greater than (Niño) or less than (Niña) the half-degree cut-off for neutral.

• A full blown El Niño/La Niña is declared when the conditions persist for three overlapping three-month periods i.e. five consecutive months.

From Columbia University/International Research Institute for Climate and Society, May 19:

Published: May 19, 2026

A monthly summary of the status of El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, based on the NINO3.4 index (120-170W, 5S-5N)

As of mid-May 2026, the equatorial Pacific is rapidly transitioning into El Niño conditions. While monthly SST anomalies remain near the borderline El Niño threshold, weekly values have surged well above it, with the last three weekly pentads firmly reaching +0.9 °C in the Niño3.4 region. This sharp warming strongly indicates that the currently near neutral seasonal averages will rise substantially in the coming months, marking a clear shift from ENSO neutral to El Niño conditions. The latest CCSR/IRI ENSO plume forecast further supports this evolution, assigning a 98% probability to El Niño during May–July 2026 compared to only 2% for continued neutrality. El Niño conditions are then likely to persist through the remainder of 2026, with forecast probabilities consistently maintained within a remarkably high and narrow 97–98% range....

....MUCH MORE 

One of the many charts and graphs, the plume of predictions, both statistical and dynamical:

 

Though the two averages (thick lines) are quite high, the outliers, above 2.5°C anomaly and even a few forecasting a +3.0°C anomaly are among the highest in years.

Finally, although all three sites are excellent, and NOAA in the U.S. is the go-to for many who are attempting the dark arts of layering one complex/chaotic system, financial markets, on top of another complex/chaotic system ENSO/weather, it is only with JAMSTEC that you also get the:

Institute for Extra-cutting-edge Science and Technology Avant-garde Research of Life (X-star)

Finally as noted introducing an earlier post:
May 14, 2026 
Drought:Intensifying, Spreading Across The U.S.

This is the first time this year we've posted the Drought Monitor map.

There seems to be an El Niño developing off the coast of South America which would mitigate some of the dryness in the southern and central U.S. Meaning that as all around you are losing their heads shouting "drought, drought" there would be wetter weather just over the horizon which would ruin any long futures one had on corn, beans or wheat.

However! If the arrival of the moisture is delayed much past July 1 it could be just awful for the farmers. So this is a heads-up but not actionable. Yet.

Layering one complex/chaotic system, financial derivatives, on top of another complex/chaotic system, weather can get interesting in ways even the best supercomputers haven't quite figured out.

From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, May 14 (data through May 12):

This Week's Drought Summary...