The El Niño winter drought forecast has sharpened as the 2026 El Niño event strengthened to the strongest on record by almost any metric as of mid-October. California has already seen record near-shore water temperatures, coastal humidity, humid heat, and rising ocean water levels.
The event officially developed in the tropical Pacific Ocean earlier this summer and has strengthened almost continually since then. By October, major predictive models had largely been validated, and the event is expected to intensify further in the coming weeks.
California and SoCal
California is already feeling the effects. Record-breaking coastal humidity and humid heat hit most of SoCal in late summer, while unusually elevated ocean water levels began to drive increasingly significant and damaging coastal erosion and flooding.
Since July, multiple tropical storms or hurricanes have also at least indirectly affected central and southern parts of California. The source ties those impacts to the same broad setup that has been building since spring, when many predictive models first pointed to a very strong ENSO signal and the writer began discussing the potential for a big event in April.
Weather West report
A special Weather West report was published in June after confidence increased considerably, and monthly video briefings followed. That sequence matters because the forecast did not come out of nowhere; it tracked a steady rise in model agreement, then real-world observations that kept lining up with the expected pattern.
The article describes the event as an ongoing climate system, not a finished one. As of mid-October, it had already become the strongest on record by almost any metric, and the coming weeks are expected to push it higher still.
Nino 3.4 and SST
There is one complication in the trend. The Nino 3.4 region SST temporarily leveled off during a very strong westerly wind burst, even as the overall signal remained on a strong upward path.
That same wind burst is expected to persist for the next 2+ weeks and may even involve an absolute reversal in the direction of prevailing tropical winds. For California and Southwest U readers, the practical takeaway is simple: the event has already reached record strength, the coastal effects are already showing up, and the winter signal is still being built rather than settled.
