Read more about Nicholas Vincent Read MoreOn June 11, 2026, NOAA declared that El Niño had formed in the tropical Pacific, and forecasters put the odds at 63 percent that it reaches “very strong” status — a super El Niño — between November and January. Since then the outlook has grown more serious, not less: the consensus across major models now points toward a peak around 3.6°C above average, and several forecasters say this could become the strongest El Niño in the modern record. El Niño transfers an enormous pulse of heat from the Pacific into the atmosphere, reshaping rainfall and storm tracks worldwide, and the strongest events bring drought to some regions and catastrophic flooding to others. Scientists also warn of a public health dimension that gets less attention: beyond heat illness itself, big El Niño years are associated with upticks in pest- and water-borne disease including cholera, typhoid, and malaria. The narrower point this petition makes is harder to argue with: the months when a record El Niño peaks are the worst possible moment to be uncertain about who is watching the ocean.