California Declares Emergency as Historic Super El Niño Season Looms

California declared a state of emergency to prepare for a potentially historic El Niño season.

Governor Newsom declared the emergency as a "Super El Niño" looms this winter. The declaration unlocks state funding to prepare for the weather phenomenon. Sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific Ocean were about 2.9 °C above the current climate baseline in early September. This is more than 1 °C warmer than at the same stage of the powerful 1997 and 2015 El Niño events.

Forecasts suggest a more than 90% chance that this year’s event will surpass every El Niño since observations began in the 1870s. Scientists classify El Niño as super when ocean heating reaches or exceeds +2 degrees Celsius for a few months. The current El Niño reached +2.7 C by August, and some forecasts predict it could top out at 4 C when it peaks between November and December.

El Niño events can bring drought and failed harvests to some areas and floods to others. They can also fuel wildfires in dried-out forests and peatlands and drive coral bleaching in overheated oceans. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned earlier this summer that "El Niño is being supersized before our eyes" and called for an end to dependency on fossil fuels.

Guterres stated that El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world and impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed. While scientists have not established that man-made climate change is increasing or intensifying El Niño, a warmer atmosphere and ocean can amplify its effects.

The ongoing El Niño has officially reached record levels. The state of emergency was declared to prepare for an El Niño that could pound the California coast.