Wx4cast

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Weekly El Nino Update

Today the Climate Prediction Center / NCEP released this week’s El Nino update.

Global SST Anomaly

SST Anomaly mean difference

Current Conditions.

SST Anomaly Analysis

As of today’s update, the Nino region SST departures are Nino 4 0.1 °C, Nino 3.4 1.8°C, Nino 3 2.7°C and Nino 1+2 is at 3.9°C. While the Central equatorial Pacific seems to have leveled off; the Eastern equatorial Pacific continues to get warmer.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Weather Prediction Center (WPC) El Nino is strengthening, and still says there is a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2026-2027.

El Nino is expected to continue strengthening through at least the end of this year.

For the US Southern Tier and the Southeast US this means a strong and very active subtropical jet stream will form by late fall, with frequent fronts, severe weather, and weekly rainfall and above-average temperatures in parts of the northern tier during fall.

The Atlantic Basin has been seeing a strong impact, with strong upper-level winds leading to extreme wind shear limiting Atlantic storm development. The 2026 season is off to its least active start in at least 60 years, continuing to struggle to produce even one well-organized storm. Even though we're in heart of the season there hasn’t been on hurricane yet for the season. Of the five named storms that have formed this year illustrate the pattern rather than break it. Each reached tropical storm strength. But due to the strong shear, dry and dusty air sinking over the tropical Atlantic preventing storms to really get their act together. It is thought that there have been two seasons with zero hurricanes: 1907 and 1914. But since that was before the satellite era, there is no real way to know if that is true or not, due to due to storms that never reached land or being reported by ships.