By Mary O’KEEFE

El Niño is a natural climate pattern characterized by warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Geological Society. Homeowners along the coast, especially in Long Beach, are very aware of the effects of El Niño resulting from the warming of the ocean. 

This 2026-27 El Niño is projected to be the strongest in history, which has a 75% chance of peaking as the strongest event in the modern record since 1950, according to The Weather Channel. 

Last week Governor Gavin Newsom declared an El Niño state of emergency that allows local areas to start planning for what could be a devastating winter. 

In an interview last week, CVW spoke with Josh Willis, project scientist for the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and Sentinel-6B satellites, concerning El Niño. 

Willis said for the local area we should see the peak of El Niño in December and maybe through February. 

“El Niños cause the sea level in the eastern Pacific to rise, so we are looking at up to an extra foot of sea level,” he said. 

This adds to the increasing sea levels that have already occurred due to a warming climate. 

“El Niño is really something that happens inside the ocean and when it happens we get high sea levels and warm water on our part of the Pacific Ocean,” Willis said, adding “and animals often know about it before we do.”

There have been many reports of unusual sea life, like sea snakes, washing onto local beaches. 

“They live in the ocean and so they really feel the impacts right away. It is very common for different species of sea life to show up and others to disappear when there’s an El Niño,” he added. “The ocean definitely knows El Niño’s coming and in some sense [it knows] a lot better than we do.”

The reason there is growing concern is not only because this is a large El Niño but because of the changing world.

“El Niño is happening in a warmer world and in a world with higher sea levels. So this El Niño, this massive climate event, is something that happens naturally but it’s happening in a world that’s already a lot warmer than it was even 30 years ago – in a world with higher sea levels that we had even 30 years ago. So it is happening on top of the change in the climate that we’ve created,” he said. 

In addition to bringing more rain and new sea creatures to local beaches, El Niño can also strengthen more storms. 

“The last thing are hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean. Normally, hurricanes in the Pacific happen way off on the west side of the Pacific Ocean, but during El Niño years, we get hurricanes in the eastern Pacific, close to our coast, south of Mexico. We’ve had several already and those … big storms can send huge waves to pummel our coastline,” Willis said.

We recently felt the tropical effects of Hurricane Marie in the area, which had some rain but also high levels of humidity. 

CVW reached out to NOAA’s Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. 

According to Matthew Rosencrans, meteorologist from that agency, there are no models that indicate a hurricane will actually make landfall in Southern California; however, that does not mean the area won’t be affected. 

Long Beach and other coastal residents are preparing for massive swells battering the coast due to Hurricane Polo. There is also Tropical Storm Rachel, which has formed off the coast of Mexico. 

“The warmer waters and lower vertical wind shear have made the area more conducive to tropical storm and hurricane formation this year. Some off-equatorial warm waters may also be contributing to longer-lived storms and storms maintaining higher intensity,” Rosencrans said.

There are no long-term trends in hurricanes for the Atlantic or East Pacific, according to Rosencrans.

“That is, trends that are separable from El Niño and other known multi-decadal [processes, patterns or trends that last across multiple decades] trends,” he said. 

If the number of hurricanes is not increasing in general without an El Niño, are the storms we are seeing more powerful?

“There is moderate evidence that land-falling hurricanes in the Atlantic are bringing more rainfall and that winds are a few percent higher. There is a small trend in more hurricanes reaching Category 4 and 5, but no trend when considering Category 3, 4, and 5, suggesting that the trend may just be reflecting a period of intense activity. Modeling suggests that winds in storms will continue to increase as well as rainfall rates, though we haven’t yet seen that in observations in a robust way,” he said.

So will we look back at this historically strong 2026-27 El Niño as just the beginning? 

“We know that the impacts are probably going to be in some ways more severe just because of the warmer world. The warmer air can hold more water. The warmer water literally causes sea levels to be higher – so those two things make the impacts more severe; but whether the El Niños themselves are changing is something we’re still trying to figure it out,” Willis said. “We can see in the satellite data we have this really amazing 35-year-long record from these sea level satellites that show that the Western Pacific warm pool, which is this thick stack of high sea level and warm water that’s usually smushed up against Indonesia, is getting thicker and the sea levels there are getting higher. And El Niño happens when those sea levels sink and spread across the Pacific. So in a way, the cause of El Niño, the thing that triggers El Niño, is sort of winding up and getting stronger.”