A Rare "Super" El Niño May Be Forming. Here’s What That Could Mean for Colorado.
A rare climate event is taking shape in the Pacific, and experts are eyeing how that could affect the Mountain West's water, wildfire risk, agriculture, and more. (READ LINKED POST FOR FULL EXPLAINER)
Colorado just had its warmest March on record. Snowpack collapsed. Reservoirs are low. And now scientists are tracking what could be one of the strongest El Niños since 1950. The planet's climate system is already running a fever. A “Super” El Niño may spike it.
Colorado sits in a transition zone where El Niño's effects are genuinely hard to predict. Some strong El Niño winters have brought Colorado above-average snowpack and real hydrologic relief. Others haven't delivered at all.
And there's a risk: the same additional moisture El Niño could bring to Colorado poses a serious flood and debris flow threat in wildfire burn scars across the state. We already saw what that looks like when the Grizzly Creek Fire scar sent mud and rock burying I-70 through Glenwood Canyon.
What Coloradans Should Watch Next
Three indicators matter most: Pacific Ocean temperatures. If subsurface warming continues to intensify, confidence in a strong El Niño rises. Southwest monsoon performance: A wet monsoon could buy Colorado valuable time before winter. Reservoir storage trends: Reservoir levels will reveal how much resilience remains in the system before snow season begins.
Full piece here if you want the breakdown.
Images:
- Satellite imagery showing sea surface temperature departures in the Pacific Ocean during October 2015, one of the strongest El Niños on record. Darker orange-red colors indicate temperatures well above normal, the thermal signature of an active El Niño. Scientists are now tracking conditions that could produce a similar pattern by late 2026. (Image: NOAA)
- According to NOAA's April 2026 forecast, El Niño conditions are now more likely than not for this coming summer, and by fall and winter, the odds climb above 90%. The gray bars represent neutral conditions, which is where we're sitting right now. That window is closing fast. By fall and winter, a significant portion of the forecast range includes strong to very strong El Niño conditions. Note the caveat in the bottom-right corner: stronger events make certain impacts more likely, but they don't guarantee bigger disruptions everywhere. (Source: NOAA Climate.gov presented by Tom Di Liberto of Climate Central)
- When El Niño takes hold, it extends and amplifies the Pacific jet stream — essentially pushing the storm track south across the country. The result is a patchwork of contrasts: the southern tier gets wetter and colder, while the northern tier runs warmer and drier than average. Colorado sits right at the transition zone, which is part of what makes forecasting its impacts complicated. (Source: NOAA Climate.gov presented by Tom Di Liberto of Climate Central)