The strong El Niño may have already peaked
Randy Mann.
JAKE PARRISH/Press
As of late January, ocean waters along the equatorial regions are still very warm and forecasters who carefully watch the trends of ocean warming and cooling have indicated that we still have a strong El Niño in the south-central Pacific Ocean. El Niño is the abnormal warming of sea-surface temperatures near the West Coast of South America and along the Equatorial Pacific. By contrast, a La Niña is the abnormal cooling of ocean waters. From 2020 through early 2023, we had a weak-to-moderate La Niña event.
However, within the last month, there have been signs that this El Niño may have peaked or is at least showing signs of weakening. Currently, much of the planet’s oceans are still warmer than normal, especially in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Despite the warmer waters, we’ve observed some very unusually cold weather in January.
For example, very frigid weather plunged into the U.S. with record cold and snows also reported across parts of northern Europe. Australia, which is normally in its drier period, experienced record rainfall across the southern and eastern portions of the continent.
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