Posted on July 6th, 2026 in Seasonal Forecasts
The July experimental predictions produced by SPEAR indicate continued intensification of a very strong El Niño through the fall, peaking by late fall or early winter. All 30 ensemble members (dotted purple lines) produce a peak El Niño strength that is at least competitive with the strongest events over the past century, suggesting that a historically strong event is underway. The forecast this month (purple lines) is notably warmer than last month’s forecast (green lines) over the next six months. The forecast indicates that El Niño is likely to weaken through the winter and into the spring.
The figure shows the latest experimental seasonal predictions of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) from the GFDL SPEAR prediction system. The predictions (purple lines) started on July 1, 2026 and extend through June 30, 2027 (x-axis). The y-axis indicates the strength of El Niño or La Niña, with more positive values indicating a stronger El Niño (warmer water in the east-central tropical Pacific relative to the tropical average temperature). The individual lines represent different forecast realizations starting from slightly different initial states, representing the forecast uncertainty from chaotic climate variability. The thick solid lines represent the average of all realizations, showing the forecast signal after filtering out the influence of chaotic climate variability. The green lines represent the predictions from the previous month, illustrating how much the forecast has changed.
For a comparison with other experimental ENSO predictions from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME), click here, and for latest NOAA ENSO Outlook, click here. Additional information on ENSO, including impacts, can be found here.