Federal forecasters are now close to certain that El Niño will shape the coming winter, and considerably less certain about how strong it will get. That distinction matters, and it is the one most likely to get flattened in coverage.
The Climate Prediction Center's current assessment is direct: "El Niño continues and will strengthen through the end of the year," with a 97 percent chance it persists through early spring 2027. What forecasters have not done is declare a very strong event. When NOAA announced the El Niño Advisory in June, it put the odds of sea surface temperatures exceeding 2.0 degrees Celsius in the monitored Pacific region at 63 percent. That threshold is what NOAA uses to classify an event as very strong.
