This year’s fall and winter will be hit with a meteorological phenomenon called El Niño, and multiple reports have latched onto the term “Super El Niño” to describe the expected elevated intensity of the current cycle.

While the term makes for catchy headlines, meteorologist Chris Martz says “Super El Niño” is not a meteorological term and calling it that is just fearmongering.

Martz told Just the News that this year’s El Niño will have impacts across different regions of the U.S., but the alarmist stories circulating in the media don’t hold up to scrutiny. As these impacts occur in the coming months, he said, exaggerations may become part of the regular news cycle on the topic.

“It wouldn't surprise me. Although they've been a little bit less strident on the climate alarm narrative this year – I've noticed that it's kind of fizzled out – it remains to be seen whether that comes back to the headlines, the front page, when Democrats take power,” Martz said. 

Very strong El Niño

Martz got his bachelor's degree in meteorology from Millersville University in 2025.  Last year, he testified for a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee on geoengineering, weather modification and the uncertainties surrounding climate change and global warming. 

Martz explained in a Facebook Reel critical of the term “Super El Niño” that there are four categories of the climate phenomenon: weak, moderate, strong and very strong. The phenomenon is the positive of the warm phase of the El Niño southern oscillation. La Niña is the cooling phase of the phenomenon. 

The El Niño-La Niña distinction, Martz said, represents the sea surface temperature response within the tropical Pacific. 

El Niño occurs every two to seven years and lasts nine to 12 months, according to the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, which calls it the most influential driver of climate on Earth. 

The administration’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a 90% chance that the Earth will get very strong El Niño conditions by late fall to early winter, and the center expects this will be the strongest El Niño since 1950. 

Making headlines

These forecasts of this year’s El Niño pattern sparked a deluge of breathless headlines warning about deadly impacts stemming from the phenomenon.

This week, António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, was warning in a post on X that “supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by climate change.” 

The U.N. predicted in August that El Niño of 2026 could “push 49 million more people into acute hunger” beginning in September. 

The Guardian ran with the warning, adding that the worst of El Niño’s impacts could be exacerbated by “the climate crisis.” 

“Climatologists are watching the strengthening El Niño with increasing alarm, saying the forecasts from climate models in the coming months are ‘mind-blowing’ and ‘astounding,’” the Guardian reported in July. 

Popular Mechanics ran an article in June about a “Super El Niño” 150 years ago that killed 50 million people. Other alarmist articles have appeared in Mother Jones and the LAist. 

While Popular Mechanics implies that this year’s El Niño could produce similar disasters as the very strong El Niño of 1877, Martz points out that today’s modern world, which includes indoor heating, air conditioning, early warning systems and evacuation capabilities, means we won’t see anything like 50 million people dying from the impacts of natural disasters. 

Matt Wielicki, director of the United States Global Change Research Program, also disputed claims that this year’s El Niño will have the same impacts as a century and a half ago. 

“We are no longer living in 1877. We have diesel-powered agricultural machinery, fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers, refrigerated food distribution, irrigation, modern hospitals, global transportation networks, and reliable electricity,” he said in a post on X. 

December may be a ‘blowtorch’

Martz said that there will be impacts from this year’s El Niño, and they vary from region to region. 

The Southeast, Gulf and Mid-Atlantic states may be wetter than average, he said, and California will see increased atmospheric rivers, which could produce substantial amounts of snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It could also produce flooding, he said. He said the Great Lakes region has often been drier than average during El Niño. 

Martz also said he expects a very warm December, calling it “a blowtorch.” 

“What I mean by ‘blowtorch’ is we're talking temperatures 5 to 10 plus-degrees [Fahrenheit] above average. So most of the country should be pretty warm in December,” he said. 

However, he said, there are caveats. Certain patterns could arise in which a lobe of the polar vortex isn’t being displaced over North America. 

“We could actually see colder risks in the Great Plains and even in the Pacific Northwest if that happens,” Martz said. 

However, El Niño of 2026 plays out, Martz said it won’t be catastrophic.