The 2026 hurricane forecast from Colorado State University's Climate Research team is due later today. There's a major weather feature brewing that could influence that forecast: a "super" El Niño.
LSU Health Climatologist Barry Keim says it means a Pacific ocean warm-water current that's two to three degrees warmer than normal.
"And that just puts everything on steroids, so all the things that you normally expect in an El Niño, well, expect it to be even more intense," he said.
So what does that mean for hurricane season? Keim says in the three prior super-El Niños on record, we had hurricane season with 11, eight, and five named storms.
"Super El Niños clearly knock down the number of tropical systems, so that would be welcome," said Keim, "if it kicked in soon enough."
And that's the tricky part: this El Niño might not start until late summer.
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