Super El Nino event formed

A super El Nino event officially formed in September 2026, monitoring data from China’s National Climate Center showed on Friday. Zhao Junhu, chief forecaster at the center, said that the equatorial central and eastern Pacific entered an El Nino state in May this year, with sea surface temperatures in the key monitoring region rising rapidly and continuously from May to September.

The three-month running mean of the sea surface temperature (SST) index in the monitoring region has remained above 0.5 degrees Celsius for five consecutive months. The index exceeded 2.5 degrees Celsius for the July-September period, meeting the threshold for a super El Nino event.

The event is classified as an eastern Pacific-type El Nino, in which the warmest sea surface temperatures are concentrated in the equatorial eastern Pacific.