El Niño & La Niña (El Niño-Southern Oscillation)
A weakening El Niño continues. Tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures are still much warmer than average, but subsurface temperatures—El Niño's "heat source"—have declined sharply. Tropical rainfall across the Pacific remains disrupted: suppressed over Indonesia, enhanced farther east. Transition to ENSO-neutral is likely by early summer 2016, with close to a 50% chance for La Niña to develop by fall.
More ENSO status information
Latest official El Niño update
February 2016 ENSO blog update
ENSO Monitoring at the Climate Prediction Center
El Niño and La Niña are the warm and cool phases of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or “ENSO” for short.
The pattern can shift back and forth irregularly every two to seven years, and each phase triggers predictable disruptions of temperature, precipitation, and winds.
These changes disrupt the large-scale air movements in the tropics, triggering a cascade of global side effects.
More about El Niño
What is El Niño in a nutshell?
Understanding El Niño (video)
FAQs
ENSO alert system criteria
ENSO essentials
Educational Resources on ENSO
El Niño is expected to affect seasonal climate across the United States during the upcoming months. There are increased chances that Mar-May will be wetter than usual across the southern U.S. and drier than usual over the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Warmth is favored across the North and West, with cool conditions favored in the south-central U.S.
Current outlook information
March-May 2016 national outlook
Seasonal outlooks by region
Monthly temperature outlook maps
Monthly precipitation outlook maps
Typical U.S El Niño impacts
Historical risk of seasonal extremes
Historical perspective on strong El Niños
Winter precipitation patterns during every El Niño since 1950
Winter temperature patterns for every El Niño since 1950
El Niño has its strongest impact on global climate during the Northern Hemisphere winter & early spring. The most reliable global impacts are dryness over Indonesia and northern South America, below-average rains during the Indian Monsoon, and excess rainfall in southeastern South America, eastern Africa near the equator, and across the southern U.S.
Hurricane activity is often suppressed in the Atlantic and amplified in the eastern North Pacific. The risk of coral bleaching increases, and populations of marine plants in the eastern tropical Pacific (and the animals that depend on them) sometimes crash.
More information
ENSO's cascade of global impacts
The Walker Circulation
The El Niño Rapid Response Campaign: Monitoring the 2015-2016 El Niño from the land, sea, and air
March 24, 2016
The 2015-2016 El Niño will go down as one of the strongest on record, and also, thanks to El Niño Rapid Response Campaign, one of the best observed.
read more
Featured Resources & Articles
News
El Niño prolongs longest global coral bleaching event
NOAA launches unprecedented effort to discover how El Niño affects weather
Images & Maps
Climate.gov’s most popular El Niño and La Niña images
El Niño 2015/16: a historical perspective (NCEI)
U.S. risk of seasonal extremes during ENSO (ESRL)
ENSO across NOAA
El Niño/Southern Oscillation (NCEI)
ENSO research and monitoring (ESRL)
Societal & ecosystem impacts
Coastal Flooding in California (NOS)
Oncoming El Niño Likely to Continue Species Shakeup in Pacific
Possibility of high sea lion strandings along U.S. West Coast this winter and spring
Regional & Local Impacts
Global Resources
ENSO @ the Australian Bureau of Meteorology
ENSO @ the World Meteorological Organization
ENSO @ the International Research Institute for Climate & Society
ENSO @ the Ocean Institute of Peru (Spanish)
ENSO @ the Centro Internacional para la Investigación del Fenómeno de El Niño (CIIFEN) (western South America, Spanish)
Events & Announcements
NOAA National Weather Service Daily Briefing
Daily
Briefing page with forecasts, discussions, maps, assessments, and severe weather outlooks for today’s developing weather patterns across the United States.
El Nino: What's Next?
February 18, 11 am CT
Hosted by SCIPP
NOAA Monthly Climate Briefing for Media
Thursday, February 18, at 11 am EST
Teleconference for public media on past month’s weather & climate conditions for the U.S. & globe, an update on El Niño, and NOAA’s 3-month climate outlook.
Western Region
California Winter Status Update
January 26, 4 - 6 pm EST
Videos
