The Pacific is warming up—and not in the way surfers usually mean when they say “warm water.” NOAA’s latest seasonal outlook points toward an unusually powerful El Niño taking shape through the rest of 2026, potentially reshaping the weather map from California to the East Coast and well into the Pacific.
NOAA now gives El Niño better than a 90% chance of reaching “very strong” status during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter. More remarkably, forecasters put the odds of an event reaching historic strength at 75% during October through December—meaning it could exceed the strength of every El Niño in NOAA’s record dating back to 1950.
And now, NOAA has released their climate predictions for the coming fall and winter. Let’s dive in.
WAVES: Follow the Storm Track
Don’t expect NOAA to tell you whether your local break will be firing next Tuesday. Seasonal climate models operate on a much broader scale. But El Niño can rearrange the Pacific storm track, potentially altering where storms form, how they travel and which coastlines receive their energy.
For West Coast surfers, that’s the intriguing part. NOAA’s outlook favors a wetter-than-normal pattern across California as fall gives way to winter, with probabilities for above-normal precipitation reaching 50–60 percent near the coast.
RAINFALL: California Gets Interesting
The southern and central United States are also favored for above-normal precipitation this fall and winter. California’s wetter signal strengthens into the winter months, while parts of the interior Northwest and Great Lakes lean drier.
More rain doesn’t automatically mean better surf—but it’s another clue that the subtropical jet and Pacific storm track could be busy.
STORMS: East vs. West
The Atlantic is a different story. NOAA’s August hurricane update gave the 2026 Atlantic season a 75-percent chance of being below normal, largely because strengthening El Niño tends to increase wind shear over the tropical Atlantic.
Meanwhile, Hawaii is staring down a much different setup. NOAA forecast a 70-percent chance of an above-normal Central Pacific hurricane season, with five to 13 tropical cyclones possible.
THE BIG QUESTION
The real show may arrive between October and January, when El Niño is expected to peak. NOAA’s models suggest this could become one of the strongest El Niños ever observed.
For surfers, that doesn’t guarantee a magical winter. But it does guarantee one thing: the Pacific deserves watching. Stay tuned.
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