At the end of September, I was on a 10-night cruise from Iceland to Ireland that turned into what my husband dubbed “the cruise to nowhere,” thanks to an unusually heavy and unseasonal storm that the captain blamed on this year’s Super El Niño.
The highly anticipated weather pattern had already been wreaking havoc in the Pacific, inundating vacation spots in Hawai’i and along Mexico’s Pacific coast with hurricanes and tropical storms and huge waves bashing California’s beach towns. In New Mexico, the storied Rio Grande, which had dried to all but a trickle over the summer, was again flowing, and the West was anticipating (with great relief) a snowy ski season.
I had been following the forecasts for El Niño, a weather phenomenon caused by untypically warm Pacific waters that disrupt the atmosphere, closely. But the last thing I expected was to encounter what forecasters said was a storm likely caused by warmer waters that had spun into a significant event in the North Atlantic. The resulting high winds and rough seas made it too dangerous to use the lifeboat-style tenders needed to take us into most of the ports on our planned route.
Still, after watching Europe swelter under record summer temperatures that dried up some key rivers and seeing the Western United States suffer through another season of extreme heat and drought, I wasn’t really surprised. Although those events weren’t directly caused by El Niño, all are a result of the larger issue of climate change, which is increasing weather extremes worldwide.
The year ahead will be no exception, with U.N. emergency relief chief Tom Fletcher describing the current El Niño as a “behemoth . . . a wrecking ball that will likely tear through Latin America, eastern and southern Africa, Asia, and the Pacific with extreme heat, droughts, and floods.”
To find out just how long these severe weather scenarios might last, and how they will affect everything from ski season to next year’s European summer vacations, I spoke with Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist and long-range forecaster with weather-forecasting firm AccuWeather, to see what the experts are predicting.
Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
So what exactly can we expect from El Niño, and how long might this year’s El Niño last?
A lot of times we see these El Niños start to form in the late spring [or] early summer. They continue to intensify as you get later into the summer and early fall, and peak out as you get into late fall and early winter. So, you’re talking about El Niño officially lasting for 7 to 11 months. But the problem is that El Niño is not just about the water temperatures; it’s about the coupling of the water-temperature change and the atmosphere, and so the atmosphere takes a little time to develop. We can still see El Niño conditions for a couple of months following that time period as well. So we could see El Niño conditions extending all the way into 2027, pretty far through the summer.
What does that mean for places like Hawai’i and Mexico, which have already seen a record number of tropical storms and hurricanes this summer and fall? Will they continue to see extreme weather events?
The rest of 2026 should trend drier, but not completely dry, in Hawai’i. El Niño brings weaker trade winds, which cuts into the precipitation totals. The wet season from November through April should wind up drier than average with a stronger subtropical jet stream north of Hawai’i. This means the storm track is north and on the north side of the Islands, which can bring occasionally rough or high surf conditions as storms pass just north of the islands. Temperatures can run near average the rest of 2026 but [will likely be] above [average] in late winter, spring, and summer.
Mexico will still see tropical activity into November, but [it will be] less frequent. This can bring heavier rainfall in western Mexico. The winter overall is [likely to be] more unsettled, [with] higher-than-average precipitation [expected] in the northern portion of the nation and high-elevation snow near the U.S. border, heavier rain, and gusty winds. The central and southern part of the nation [will be] drier than average. Water temperatures surrounding Mexico will remain warm through the spring and summer following the peak of El Niño and can lead to drier conditions in the interior, which can result in drought conditions. Temperatures [could] wind up above average in spring and summer for a large portion of the nation.
I keep hearing predictions for massive storms and flooding in California. Is North America going to be hardest hit?
That’s a really good question. I really feel, and my team does [as well], that the West Coast of the United States is going to get hammered, particularly Central California. The Southeast could be challenging as well. But it could be more than just rain. We could have flooding. We could have severe weather. In the past we’ve seen a couple of El Niños produce severe weather all the way up through Maryland and Virginia.
What about what areas in between, like the Southwest? I know where I live in New Mexico, we had a dry monsoon season but are seeing more fall rains, which this region really needs.
So, again, we’re kind of [predicting] Central California [will get hit] the worst. Now I do believe Southern California in mid to late winter may get hit as well. Colorado and New Mexico could be left out. It could be the Central Plains [and] the West Coast and the Southeast that get hit.
How will that affect ski season in the United States?
I think all the ski areas [in the West] will do well. I think even in Colorado, even if you don’t get as much snow as California and Utah get, yeah, you still do well. But it’s the east that’s going to suffer. I mean, maybe the northern mountains, the Green Mountains and the White Mountains, they may do okay. But your popular operations in the east are going to really be hurting because you’re just not going to have a lot of snow.
What about Europe? Will El Niño bring any relief there following the record-breaking heat wave that also dried up some of Europe’s main rivers?
Europe is one of the continents that doesn’t have a very strong correlation, just because it’s farther away from where [El Niño] originates in the eastern, eastern-central equatorial Pacific. But the Mediterranean area typically gets a little wetter and a little cooler, and that’s good news.
In the wintertime—and this is when El Niño has the most impact in the northern hemisphere—we usually see an increase in wind storms in Europe that affects France, Scotland, England, and the Dutch region of the Netherlands. Now those storms can bring some brief, heavy rainfall, some of it snow, maybe to parts of the Western Alps. That would help. Snow cover is much more important than rain, because in the winter a lot of rain evaporates and runs off.
I realize that these long-range forecasts are very general and can shift. But can you give us an overview of what travelers might expect elsewhere around the globe?
If you’re going to Brazil, Argentina, the top spots in those areas, you may see a little bit more extra rainfall this winter. If you’re planning a trip to the Caribbean, it may be okay because this main storm track will probably be north, and so you should have some nice weather, which is not really that uncommon.
If you’re going to Australia, expect some drier conditions. Now, if you’re going farther north into Indonesia, the weather on the islands should be better. It should be drier than average. You should have some nice vacationing weather. The southwest Pacific should be good. If you’re going to, like, say farther north, into East China, Beijing, and Japan, conditions could be wetter there. That’s typical of El Niño.
Any chance El Niño will repeat next year?
I doubt it. Looking at the past big ones, they’ve really turned and flipped very quickly, and the following winter ended up being more of a La Niña, which is the opposite of El Niño. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines La Niña as a “cold event” with above-average winter temperatures in the South and cooler-than-normal temperatures in the North.)
