What An El Niño Pattern Means For You

The Eastern Pacific hurricane season begins Friday and an increasingly likely super El Niño could turbocharge the 2026 season with at least some impacts possible in Mexico, Hawaii and the Southwest United States.

Why It Starts Earlier

But doesn't hurricane season start in June?

That's true in the Atlantic Basin.

The Eastern Pacific side — generally from Mexico's Pacific coast into the Central Pacific Ocean — starts on May 15.

That's because conditions in the Eastern Pacific are typically favorable for development earlier than the Atlantic side, as you can see in the graphs from the National Hurricane Center below.

The Eastern Pacific basin doesn't have to contend with surges of dry, dust-laden air from the Sahara Desert that helps keep a lid on early development on the Atlantic side.

Where They Usually Go

You don't often hear as much about Eastern Pacific hurricanes.

The large majority of them form somewhere off Mexico's Pacific coast, then move west or northwest over the open ocean and eventually fizzle without striking land.

But as the map of hurricane tracks shows below, occasionally some hurricanes curl north or northeastward toward the Baja Peninsula, along the Gulf of California coast or Mexico's Pacific coast.

While it's rare for tropical storms to remain intact as far north as the Southwest U.S., it's much more common for their remnant moisture or spin to boost summer monsoon thunderstorms with flooding rain in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

Occasionally, some of those Eastern Pacific hurricanes fight off drier air and wind shear to make it as far west as Hawaii. Other storms can form closer to Hawaii and become a threat there.

(MORE: Hawaii Hurricane History)

Strong El Niño Impact

The central and eastern equatorial Pacific waters continue a steady march toward El Niño, a periodic warming of water in this region that can affect global weather patterns for months. This upcoming one could be a super El Niño, possibly record strong.

And this could impact the hurricane season.

We examined data on storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes — Category 3 or stronger — in the Central and Eastern Pacific Basin from 1971 through 2025 compiled by Colorado State University tropical scientist Phil Klotzbach.

From 1991 through 2020, an average hurricane season in the Central and Eastern Pacific generated between 16 and 17 storms, eight to nine of which were hurricanes and four to five of which reached at least Category 3 status.

In the five years in which a strong El Niño developed sometime in the hurricane season, those tallies were boosted by an average of about four more storms, two to three more hurricanes and one to two more major hurricanes.

Unlike its squashing effect on the Atlantic Basin, a stronger El Niño tends to produce more rising air and less hostile wind shear in the Central and Eastern Pacific basins, making the environment more favorable for tropical storms and hurricanes.

Strong El Niño Examples

The map below shows tracks of the 56 hurricanes that developed in the Central and Eastern Pacific basins during those five strong El Niño seasons since 1971.

Many of those stayed out over the open ocean, as we previously alluded to, but there have been several notables:

- In October 2015, Hurricane Patricia became the most intense on record anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, peaking at 215 mph maximum sustained winds just off Mexico's Pacific coast before it slammed a sparsely populated area north of Manzanillo, Mexico.

- In September 1997, the former Hurricane Nora survived as a tropical storm into the Lower Colorado River Valley. Up to 5.5 inches of rain in Southern California triggered street flooding in Palm Springs and San Diego. Winds knocked out power to 125,000 customers and up to 20-foot waves produced tidal flooding at Seal Beach.

- In November 1982, Hurricane Iwa nailed Kauai, Hawaii, with destructive high winds and storm surge. Over $300 million in damage was reported in Kauai and Niihau and 2,300 homes were damaged. Iwa was Hawaii's costliest natural disaster at the time before a much stronger Hurricane Iniki raked Kauai 10 years later.

Wild Card: Ocean Heat Wave

As if a potentially record-strong El Niño wasn't enough to put a charge into the 2026 Central and Eastern Pacific hurricane season, there's another factor in play this year.

Ocean water is generally warm enough to support tropical storms and hurricanes from around Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, southward.

But right now, there's a large blob of much warmer than average water in the Eastern Pacific hurricane zone extending as far north as off the U.S. West Coast and as far west as Hawaii and tropical areas near the International Date Line.

According to an analysis by meteorologist Alex Boreham, parts of that zone are record-warm for this time of year.

That doesn't mean we'll have tropical storms and hurricanes as far north as California this season. They're extremely rare in California.

But this Pacific Ocean heat wave could give an additional boost to any Central and Eastern Pacific hurricanes this season. It could also allow them to last a bit longer when and if they are pulled northward toward Baja California or the Desert Southwest.

(TROPICAL HISTORY: California | Hawaii)

So, while the Atlantic hurricane season could be quieter than usual, the opposite appears likely in the Pacific in 2026.

(ATLANTIC IN DEPTH: Strong El Niño Hurricane Seasons | Effects On Tracks | Caribbean Travel Impacts)

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.