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We know, we know, it's still very much summer in NYC. But if you’re already wondering whether New York is headed for a snowless winter—or the kind that turns every grocery store into a panic zone—meteorologists are watching something very big brewing thousands of miles away.
El Niño, the climate pattern caused by unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, is strengthening rapidly and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says there’s now a greater than 90 percent chance that the current El Niño will become “very strong” during fall and winter 2026–27. (Forecasters say it could rank among the most powerful El Niño events on record.)
If you're wondering exactly how that will affect us thousands of miles away, El Niño can rearrange major atmospheric patterns and storm tracks across the country. Strong events typically favor warmer conditions across much of the northern United States and a more active, wetter storm track across the South. But for New York and the broader Northeast, things get considerably messier.
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NOAA’s newly released outlook for September through November currently predicts above-normal temperatures in the Northeast, while precipitation is more likely to come in below normal. Winter, however, is a bigger question mark.
Historically, strong El Niño winters are mild in the Northeast and snowfall in the New York City-to-Boston corridor often ends up below normal. But (and this is a pretty major but) that doesn’t mean New Yorkers can retire their snow boots, since past El Niño winters have produced some enormous individual storms. The very strong 2015–16 El Niño winter, for example, brought New York the January 2016 blizzard, which dumped 27.5 inches on Central Park and remains one of the city’s biggest snowstorms on record.
There is one more immediate El Niño effect: Strong El Niño conditions tend to increase wind shear over the Atlantic, which can suppress hurricane development. That doesn’t eliminate the threat of tropical storms hitting the East Coast, but it can reduce overall Atlantic hurricane activity.
For now, New Yorkers probably shouldn’t start stockpiling rock salt. NOAA’s more detailed winter outlooks will sharpen as we get closer to the season and plenty of other atmospheric factors can still change the forecast.