The current super El Niño is nearing record strength and is already showing its effects on the nation's weather, from flooding rain to a warm and dry fall.

How close to a record?

Water temperatures near the equator in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean region meteorologists monitor for El Niño were 2.5 degrees Celsius above average as of the last week of October.

(COMPLETE COVERAGE: El Niño 2026-27)

Based on daily data using an old "oceanic Niño index" (ONI), it would be a new all-time record.

However, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center officially uses data averaged over three-month periods and a new index that filters out the surrounding warming ocean from climate change called the "relative oceanic Niño index" (RONI).

Their latest three-month RONI value from August through October (1.97 degrees above average) is a little behind the pace from the 1997 (2.07 degrees) El Niño.

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The record three-month RONI in NOAA's database was 2.4 degrees above average from December 1982 through February 1983.

NOAA uses longer-term data to filter out short-term changes in the weather and ocean from the El Niño signal, according to James Belanger, The Weather Company vice president of meteorology.

Regardless, the NOAA latest monthly outlook says chances "remain high for a historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950."

Based on past intense El Niño events and on the current pace, that record could be reached some time late this fall or early winter.

Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather pointed out this El Niño is likely to be the strongest in 1,000 years, based on evidence from tree rings and ocean corals.

Its thumbprint is already there

The stronger the El Niño, the more certain it will impact the weather pattern.

It has already done that, limiting the Atlantic hurricane season to only one hurricane, the fewest on record since 1925.

And it now appears the typical winter impacts of El Niño have already started to settle in over the U.S. 1 to 2 months early, according to meteorologist and El Niño expert Eric Webb.

In the past couple of weeks, we've had two major flash flood events in the Desert Southwest, followed by up to 2 feet of rain inundating parts of the Florida Peninsula and a major overnight flash flood in the mountains of northern Georgia and southeastern Tennessee.

According to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, it's been a record wet fall through Nov. 4 in Albuquerque (5.20 inches), Flagstaff, Arizona (13.15 inches) and West Palm Beach, Florida (34.68 inches).

Elsewhere, it has been very warm and mainly dry.

Dozens of cities in the central U.S. have had a record warm fall through early November, including Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Nashville, according to the SERCC.

So, while the daily and weekly weather may throw a few curveballs as usual, this warm North, wet South pattern is forecast to last at least through February.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.