In a 2015 interview with the Los Angeles Times, climatologist Bill Patzert gave an extraordinarily powerful El Niño a nickname worthy of a monster movie: “Godzilla El Niño.”
Eleven years later, Godzilla may be stirring again.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center says the El Niño currently strengthening in the Pacific has a 75% chance of becoming a historic event during the October-December period, potentially exceeding the strength of previous El Niños dating back to 1950.
NOAA also puts the chances of a “very strong” El Niño during fall and winter 2026-27 at greater than 90%.
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The Weather Channel reports that sea surface temperatures are already more than 3 degrees Celsius above average in parts of the equatorial eastern Pacific. Using daily measurements from an older version of the Oceanic Niño Index, the current warmth would already represent an all-time record.
NOAA’s official measurement is more conservative, relying on three-month averages and its Relative Oceanic Niño Index, or RONI. Those readings had not yet reached record territory through August.
Still, NOAA’s latest forecast is striking.
“There is a 75% chance of a historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950,” the Climate Prediction Center said in its Sept. 10 update.
What Does a ‘Godzilla’ El Niño Mean?
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Despite its sudden reappearance in weather headlines, “Godzilla El Niño” isn’t an official NOAA category.
The memorable term dates back to 2015, when Patzert, then a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the Los Angeles Times that the strengthening El Niño that year had “the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño.”
The nickname has subsequently been used for exceptionally powerful El Niño events.
Earlier in 2026, UC Santa Cruz climate scientist Patrick Barnard spoke to The Inertia about what another potential “Godzilla” event could mean.
Barnard pointed to the powerful El Niños of 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 as useful comparisons. One of the most consistent effects during those events was increased wave energy along the California coast.
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“What’s consistent across all those events is larger wave energy, bigger waves, sometimes 50 percent above average during the winter,” Barnard said.
Rainfall, however, is much harder to predict.
The 2015-16 El Niño produced major waves and coastal erosion but didn’t deliver the huge amounts of California rainfall some had expected. Barnard cautioned that changing climate conditions make it difficult to assume the next powerful El Niño will behave exactly like earlier ones.
The strengthening El Niño is already having an impact on the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. Strong El Niños typically increase wind shear and sinking air over parts of the Atlantic Basin, creating conditions that are less favorable for hurricanes to develop and strengthen. According to The Weather Channel, the Atlantic had produced just five tropical storms and no hurricanes through early September, well below the average of eight tropical storms and three hurricanes by that point in the season.
What Could El Niño Mean for Winter 2026-27?
Graphic by Jonathan WALTER and Valentina BRESCHI / AFP via Getty Images
For the U.S., El Niño’s effects typically become more widespread between December and March, according to NOAA meteorologist Erica Grow Cei, who spoke to The Weather Channel.
During a strong El Niño, the subtropical jet stream is generally more active. That tends to favor a wetter winter across the southern U.S., stretching from parts of California and the Desert Southwest through the Southeast and Florida. Where temperatures are cold enough, some areas could also see increased snowfall.
Across much of the northern U.S., the typical pattern is essentially reversed. The Northwest, northern Rockies, Northern Plains and parts of the Midwest tend to experience milder and drier conditions during a stronger El Niño.
California is already taking the threat seriously.
The Los Angeles Times reported that officials across Southern California are preparing for a potentially wet and damaging winter, including work to strengthen vulnerable hillsides and clear sediment from reservoirs to increase their capacity ahead of possible flooding.
The City of Los Angeles is also preparing areas vulnerable to debris flows, flooding and high winds.
But a historic El Niño does not guarantee historic rain in any particular location.
NOAA explicitly cautioned that while an event of this magnitude increases the chances of weather patterns normally associated with El Niño, those impacts are “not guaranteed.”
That’s an important distinction, particularly with months still to go before the heart of winter.
What forecasters do know is that El Niño is continuing to strengthen, and NOAA’s current outlook gives it a better-than-even chance of reaching territory unseen in more than 75 years.
Whether it ultimately deserves the “Godzilla” name will depend on what the Pacific, and the atmosphere above it, do next.
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