Record Monster El Niño Looms

Forecasters say this year’s El Niño could become the strongest ever recorded, and it is already disrupting weather on multiple continents.

Story Snapshot

The New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast reported on August 19, 2026, that this year’s El Niño is on track to be the strongest on record.
The federal Climate Prediction Center puts the odds at 69% that this event beats every El Niño measured since 1950.
The Times says the pattern is already causing dry spells, crop failures, and rising temperatures across several continents.
Scientists note that El Niño forecasts are based on probability ranges, not guaranteed outcomes, even when the odds look strong.

What The Daily Reported

The New York Times’ flagship podcast, “The Daily,” released an episode on August 19, 2026, titled “El Niño Is Back. And Worse Than Ever.” Reporter Chico Harlan, the paper’s global climate reporter, walked listeners through El Niño’s history, how it forms, and its growing impact on weather worldwide. The episode states plainly that El Niño “is back, and this year it’s already on track to be, by far, the strongest and most severe on record”.

El Niño is a natural climate pattern where warmer ocean water builds up in the tropical Pacific. It shifts weather patterns across the globe, often bringing drought to some regions and heavy rain to others. This pattern returns every few years, but scientists track its strength closely because bigger events tend to cause bigger disruptions to farming, water supplies, and temperatures.

The Numbers Behind The Warning

The federal Climate Prediction Center gives a 69% chance that this year’s El Niño becomes the strongest since 1950, according to the episode. That number comes from an official government forecasting model, not a guess. Still, a 69% chance means there is roughly a 31% chance it does not happen, a detail worth keeping in mind when headlines use words like “worst ever.”

The Times has been building toward this story for months. A June 11, 2026 report said meteorologists confirmed an El Niño had formed in the tropical Pacific and would “likely intensify in the coming months”. By August, the paper’s climate desk described the event as “huge and already changing the world,” pointing to dry spells and crop failures spreading across multiple continents.

Real-World Effects Already Showing Up

The Times reports El Niño is “nudging up global temperatures and causing dry spells and crop failures on multiple continents”. Earlier coverage from June described the pattern as a “climate chaos maker” that is worsening the effects of broader climate change. These aren’t projections for some distant future. According to the paper’s reporting, farmers, water systems, and temperature records are already feeling the strain this year.

Climate scientists who study El Niño forecasting caution that these predictions come from ensemble models, meaning scientists run many possible weather scenarios and report the range of likely outcomes. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has noted that seasonal forecasts are “necessarily probabilistic,” and that reliable predictions describe a range of possibilities rather than a single certain outcome. That doesn’t make the 69% figure meaningless. It means the strongest, most attention-grabbing language in any headline should be read alongside the actual odds behind it.

Why This Matters Beyond The Forecast

Big weather events like this reach far beyond the climate beat. Crop failures raise food prices. Droughts strain water supplies that farmers, cities, and power plants all depend on. Higher global temperatures add pressure to infrastructure already stretched thin. Whether or not this El Niño sets an all-time record, the disruptions described in the Times’ reporting are already playing out on the ground for people who have no say in how the forecast turns out.

The bigger lesson may be about how forecasts travel from scientists to the public. A government agency’s 69% probability estimate is a real, useful number. But by the time it becomes a podcast headline promising the event is already “worse than ever,” some of that nuance can get lost. Readers are left to sort out where the solid science ends and the attention-grabbing framing begins, a challenge that shows up again and again in how big weather stories get told.