NOAA warns El Niño could hit coastal communities with a “double whammy” of flooding
WASHINGTON — U.S. forecasters said Friday that El Niño has developed in the tropical Pacific and is expected to strengthen this fall, raising the odds
WASHINGTON — U.S. forecasters said Friday that El Niño has developed in the tropical Pacific and is expected to strengthen this fall, raising the odds of a harsher storm season, deeper coastal flooding and wider climate disruption across the Americas and beyond.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its National Weather Service has issued an El Niño Advisory. Forecasters now see a 63% chance that sea surface temperatures in the monitored Pacific region will climb above 2.0°C. If they do, NOAA classifies the event as a “very strong” El Niño. The warmer phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle is projected to peak this winter.
Why coastal flooding is the immediate worry
For NOAA oceanographer William Sweet, the danger is not just the warming pattern itself. It is the timing.
“It usually ends up being a double whammy,” Sweet said, describing a combination of long-term sea level rise and a strong El Niño that can push waters farther inland. “The first punch is decades of sea level rise, which has waters close to the brim in many coastal communities. And now with this second punch — a strong El Niño — coastal communities face more frequent, deeper and widespread high tide flooding along both the West and East Coasts.”
That flood risk matters even when storms are not on the coast. NOAA has warned that some communities may see repeated high tide flooding in 2026 simply because ocean water is already running high.
A wider weather pattern with uneven effects
El Niño is one phase of ENSO, the Pacific climate cycle that shifts weather patterns every two to seven years. The current event follows a neutral phase after the system moved out of cooler conditions.
The impacts rarely fall evenly. In Latin America, UN food agency chief economist Maximo Torero said a severe El Niño between October and December could deepen strain on agriculture, especially where weather extremes overlap with supply problems. He warned that Peru could face flooding on its northern coast while highlands deal with water scarcity, and that northern and southern Chile may see sharply different conditions.
Elsewhere, scientists are already watching the Pacific coast of North America. California researchers have said a developing super El Niño could intensify an ongoing marine heat wave, raising sea surface temperatures even further and putting sea life under pressure. The concern is familiar, and not abstract. Warmer water can shift ecosystems, stress marine life and draw some species north.
Amazon risks and a broader climate backdrop
In the Amazon, scientists are warning that the peak of El Niño may arrive at a dangerous moment, at the end of the dry season between October and December, when rivers are lowest and forest undergrowth is most vulnerable to fire.
That seasonal timing lands on top of a planet already heated by human-caused climate change. The result, researchers say, is a sharper “double whammy”: long-term warming amplifying the damage from a naturally recurring Pacific event.
NOAA says the coming months will be watched closely. The agency’s forecasters expect the El Niño to strengthen as winter approaches, while coastal communities from the United States to Latin America prepare for the same question: how much water will be waiting at the shoreline when high tide comes in again.
