El Niño 2026 just broke a major threshold heading into hurricane season. Here’s what that means for the storm forecast

El Niño just hit another milestone before we’ve even seen the first major storm of this year’s U.S. hurricane season. And no, we’re not talking about predictions that El Niño is likely to be the strongest on record, or that it could result in extreme weather through 2027, including raising sea levels along California’s coast by as much as a foot, potentially triggering massive flooding and damage.On September 14, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported El Niño has now officially crossed the threshold of being a “very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2026-27”—otherwise known as a Super El Niño. “During the October-December 2026 season, there is a 75% chance of a historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950,” NOAA said. El Niño is a climate pattern that naturally occurs every two to seven years or so as a result of warmer-than-usual water in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. NOAA reported that weekly sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific had hit the threshold of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit: in effect qualifying it for “super” status. What is El Niño? The complex weather …