Campaign start. The seesaw is already visible in the raw best-track files: the East Pacific has produced seven systems — two of them hurricanes spinning right now — while the Atlantic has managed two. Exactly the split a strengthening El Niño predicts.
The 2026 event against the two strongest El Niños on record, aligned by calendar week. Horizontal lines mark NOAA's intensity thresholds.
"Super" is not an official category — the strongest NOAA label is very strong, Niño 3.4 running ≥ +2.0 °C. The relative index RONI subtracts the tropics-wide warming trend and is the stricter yardstick in a warming ocean: when RONI and raw Niño 3.4 agree, the signal is real, not background warmth.
Data table
El Niño suppresses the Atlantic and fuels the East Pacific. Bars show 2026 counts against NOAA's outlook ranges (shaded) and the 1991–2020 average (tick).
Storm log
Vertical wind shear over the hurricane Main Development Region (10–20°N, 20–80°W), measured twice daily by this site's own model. The dashed trace is the current 10-day forecast.
Shear is the mechanism El Niño uses to suppress hurricanes — and it is directly measurable. Sustained values above ~10 m/s are hostile to developing storms. This record grows for the rest of the season; watch for multi-day windows where shear relaxes below the line.
Data table
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01
The seesaw. Trade winds normally pile warm Pacific water toward Indonesia. In an El Niño the trades weaken, the warm pool slides east, and the tropics' biggest heat engine — deep thunderstorm convection — moves with it.
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02
The ocean moved first. Repeated westerly wind bursts this spring launched downwelling Kelvin waves — slow subsurface pulses of warm water that crossed the Pacific and loaded the eastern basin with heat before the surface numbers caught up.
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03
The lawnmower. Displaced Pacific convection strengthens upper-level winds over the Caribbean and Atlantic. That difference between winds aloft and winds near the surface — vertical shear — tips developing storms over and slices their tops off. It is the single variable this site measures every day.
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04
The yardstick. El Niño is declared when the 3-month Niño 3.4 average holds ≥ +0.5 °C for five overlapping seasons; ≥ +2.0 °C is very strong. CPC's July 9 discussion: an El Niño Advisory is in effect, 97% odds it persists into spring 2027 — and the odds of a very strong event have climbed from roughly one-in-three this spring, to 63% in June, to 81% now.
1992 was a suppressed season: seven named storms. One of them was Hurricane Andrew — Category 5, ~$27B damage, 65 dead. A quiet season delivered one of the most catastrophic landfalls in U.S. history.
El Niño shear doesn't blow at full blast every day. When it relaxes for even a few days over a Gulf that stays bathtub-warm, storms can spin up close to land with far less warning than a long-track Cape Verde system. Below-normal is not the same thing as safe.
This site is a research exercise — consult the NHC and NWS for any real decision.
CPC's July 9 discussion raised the odds of a very strong event (Niño 3.4 ≥ +2.0 °C, Oct–Dec) to 81% — it was ~33% in spring and 63% in June. If the +3 °C model solutions verify, this becomes the strongest event in the modern record. Watch whether RONI keeps pace with the raw index.
NOAA's seasonal outlooks frame the bet: Atlantic 55% below-normal (8–14 named / 3–6 hurricanes / 1–3 major) versus an East Pacific at 70% above-normal (15–22 named). The scoreboard above tracks both against reality through November 30.