What Past Super El Niños Did to Your State: 1982–83, 1997–98 and 2015–16
Updated: October 5, 2026 · 5 min read · Live dashboard
Pick your state on the map below and you get three numbers that matter more than any rule of thumb: how much rain and snow fell from December through February, and how warm it was, in each of the last three super El Niño winters. The figures are NOAA's own statewide records, compared with the 20th-century average and ranked against every winter since 1895–96.
Why these three winters? 1982–83, 1997–98 and 2015–16 are the three El Niños since records began in 1950 whose peak Oceanic Niño Index passed +2.0°C, the line usually meant by "super El Niño". The 2026–27 event is forecast to be strong and possibly very strong, so these are the closest company it has. The live state of the ocean is on our dashboard, and the national picture is on the United States impacts page.
Read the map as a record of what has happened, not a promise of what will. Three winters is a small sample, and as the map shows, they did not always agree.
What the last three super El Niño winters did, state by state
Statewide December–February precipitation and temperature in 1982–83, 1997–98 and 2015–16, against the 1901–2000 average
Analogs are not a forecast. Three winters are a tiny sample, each event had its own shape, and nothing about 2026–27 is decided by what 1997–98 did. Read the map as the range of what strong events have done, not as what this one will do. A super El Niño here means one whose peak Oceanic Niño Index passed +2.0°C — these three, since records began in 1950.
2015–16 in Southern California. The strongest of the three events still left the south coast dry: Dec 2015–Feb 2016, California Climate Division 6 (South Coast Drainage) received 6.51 in against a 1901–2000 average of 10.31 in (63%) — 41st driest of 131 Dec–Feb seasons. Statewide California came in at 105% of average that winter, held up by the wetter north. NCEI series.
How to read the map
The map colours each state by one winter at a time. Switch between precipitation and temperature, and between the three winters, with the buttons above it.
Precipitation is shown as a percentage of the long-term average, not in inches. An extra two inches of winter rain is a deluge in Nevada and an ordinary month in Louisiana; a percentage puts both on the same footing. Brown means drier than average, teal means wetter, grey means within about ten percent of normal.
Temperature is shown as a departure in degrees Fahrenheit, the unit NOAA's statewide records use, with Celsius beside it in the state card. Red is warmer than average, blue is colder.
The rank is NOAA's, not ours. NOAA ranks every December–February season on record for each state. A "3rd wettest" means only two winters since 1895–96 were wetter. Ranks are as of the date the data was downloaded, shown under the map, and can move by a place as new winters join the record.
Every figure is statewide. A state's average can hide sharp differences inside it — California is the obvious case, and the note under the map spells it out.
What the three winters agree on
Some parts of the pattern showed up in all three winters, which is as close to a reliable signal as three events can give.
The southern storm track is the strongest of them. Florida, Georgia and Alabama were wetter than average in every one of the three winters, often by a wide margin, and Florida's 1997–98 season ranks among its wettest on record. This is the textbook El Niño pattern at work: a strengthened subtropical jet carrying Pacific moisture along the Gulf Coast. Our Gulf Coast and Southeast page covers what that means for flooding and winter severe weather.
The mild North is the other. From Montana and the Dakotas across Minnesota and the Great Lakes to New England, all three winters ran well above the 20th-century average, with many states posting top-ten warm rankings. A milder average is still not a promise about any single cold snap, and the baseline caveat below applies with force.
Where the winters disagree
The disagreements are where the lesson is.
The Southwest and Texas. In 1982–83 and 1997–98 the wet storm track reached deep into the Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico and Texas all ran well above average. In 2015–16 it did not. Arizona was clearly dry, and New Mexico and Texas finished below average. The strongest event of the three, by peak ONI, was the one that missed.
California. The statewide numbers show two very wet winters and one roughly average one. That average hides the real story of 2015–16: the north coast was wet and the south coast was dry, well below its normal winter rainfall, despite the strongest El Niño on record. The California page has the longer account of that winter.
The Pacific Northwest. The textbook pattern for a strong El Niño is a drier, milder Northwest. Statewide precipitation tells a different story: Oregon was above average in all three winters and Washington in two. What the warmth did to mountain snow is a separate question that statewide precipitation cannot answer — the Pacific Northwest page deals with the snowpack.
The Ohio Valley. Kentucky ran dry in two of the three winters, and Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 1982–83, a nod to the textbook drier Ohio Valley. In 2015–16 the same states were wetter than average.
The warm baseline
Look at the temperature map for 2015–16 and nearly every state is red. Some of that is El Niño, which pushes the northern tier warm. Some of it is not.
NOAA ranks every season against the 1901–2000 average, and this page uses the same baseline so that a departure and a rank never contradict each other on one card. The country has warmed since that period, so a recent winter starts with a head start on any 20th-century average. Part of every warm departure in 2015–16, and to a lesser degree in 1997–98, is that long-term warming rather than the El Niño itself. When you compare the three winters, compare the pattern — which regions ran warmest relative to the rest — more than the raw number.
Why there is no 2026–27 number on the card
The plan for this page included the official seasonal outlook for each state. We checked, and the Climate Prediction Center publishes its seasonal outlooks as mapped probability zones, not as a value per state. A zone boundary often runs straight through a state, and reducing that to one number would be our estimate wearing NOAA's name. So the card shows only what NOAA recorded, and the forecast stays where it belongs: on the Climate Prediction Center's outlook maps and on our forecast page, which follows the official El Niño odds month by month.
How to use this
- Treat the three winters as a range, not a forecast. If your state was wet in all three, the odds of a wet winter are worth taking seriously. If the three disagree, the event alone tells you little.
- Check the rank, not just the colour. A state can be teal and still rank in the middle of its record; a top-ten wet or warm ranking is the stronger signal.
- Look inside big states. For California, Texas and the other large states, the statewide average can hide a split between regions, as 2015–16 showed.
- Pair it with the outlook. The official seasonal outlook is the forecast; the map is the history behind it.
Bottom line
In all three super El Niño winters the Southeast got wetter and the northern tier ran mild. Beyond that, the three winters disagreed often enough — most memorably in the Southwest and Southern California in 2015–16 — that no state should treat a past winter as its forecast. Watch the weekly ocean numbers on the dashboard and the monthly official outlook through the winter; that is where 2026–27 will actually be decided.
Keep reading
El Niño Effects on the United States: What a Strong 2026–27 Event Could Bring
El Niño loads the dice for a wet, stormy South and a milder North — and 2026–27 is forecast to be a strong to very strong event.
El Niño in California: Rain, Floods and What 2026–27 Could Bring
California's wettest winters cluster in strong El Niño years — and 2026–27 is forecast to be one of them.
The 1997–98 El Niño: The Benchmark Monster
The 'El Niño of the century' peaked at +2.4°C, killed thousands through floods and fires, and turned ENSO into a household phrase.
The 2015–16 El Niño: Strongest on Record, Full of Surprises
A record +2.6°C peak, a global coral catastrophe — and a famous Southern California rain no-show that rewrote how forecasters talk about odds.
Frequently asked questions
- Will my state's winter in 2026–27 look like 1997–98?
- Not necessarily, and nobody can promise it. The three super El Niño winters on the map disagreed with each other in many states, which is the clearest sign that the event alone does not decide a state's winter. Other influences, from Arctic patterns to Atlantic temperatures to plain chance, push every season around. Use the past winters as the range of what strong events have done, and use the official seasonal outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for the forecast itself.
- Why are almost all states warmer than average in 2015–16?
- Two things stack up. Strong El Niño winters do tend to run mild across the northern half of the country. But the map also measures every winter against the 1901–2000 average, the baseline NOAA uses for its rankings, and the country has warmed since then. Part of every recent warm departure is that long-term warming rather than El Niño, which is why 2015–16 looks warm almost everywhere, including states the textbook pattern would leave near normal.
- Why is there no current outlook for my state on this page?
- The Climate Prediction Center publishes its seasonal outlook as maps of probability zones, not as a value for each state. Turning a zone that cuts across a state into a single number would be our own estimate presented as NOAA's, so the page leaves it out. The official winter outlook maps are on the Climate Prediction Center site, and our forecast page tracks the El Niño odds as they update each month.
More answers on the full FAQ page.