A rapidly strengthening El Niño is already reshaping weather patterns across the United States, with record-warm Pacific waters, an unusually quiet Atlantic hurricane season, renewed severe-weather threats and a late-summer heat wave all becoming part of a pattern meteorologist Ryan Hall says has few modern comparisons.
Hall, host of the weather YouTube channel Ryan Hall, Y’all, said the Pacific Ocean has never been this warm during August in the roughly 45 years covered by the records he cited, even compared with the powerful El Niño events of 1997 and 2015. Those two years are often used as benchmarks for exceptionally strong El Niño conditions, yet Hall said the Pacific is currently running even hotter than either of them was at the same point in the calendar.
That does not mean the coming fall or winter will simply repeat those years, and Hall was careful not to present those historical events as forecasts. What makes the current setup so interesting is that several major pieces of the weather pattern are already behaving in ways that line up with a strong El Niño, while others remain harder to predict.
Heat Dome Shifts Toward The Midwest
One of the first changes people will notice is a major shift in the heat that has dominated Texas and Oklahoma through much of the summer.
Hall said the heat dome that has remained parked over that region is moving northeast and setting up closer to the Mississippi River, which will pull some of the hottest temperatures into places that have avoided the worst of the summer heat so far.
St. Louis is one example. According to Hall, the city has not reached 100 degrees this year, yet the forecast calls for 100 on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
Other cities are expected to see similar late-season heat. Hall cited forecasts around 97 degrees in Kansas City, 99 in Memphis, near 98 in Nashville and above 100 in Little Rock, while Atlanta could climb into the mid-90s by the end of the week.
Charlotte could approach 97 degrees, Raleigh 98 and Washington around 95. Hall said the National Weather Service in Washington was already expecting heat advisories east of the Blue Ridge, where humidity could push apparent temperatures toward 105 degrees.
The Weather Prediction Center, he said, characterized the developing event as an intense and dangerous late-summer heat wave spreading from the Plains into the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
Humidity may initially remain somewhat manageable, with dew points largely in the 60s, but Hall still expects heat-index readings around 100 to 105 across Illinois, Missouri and western Kentucky. Near the lower Mississippi Valley, those values could come closer to 110.
The timing is striking because the calendar will already be turning to September. For some communities, Hall said the hottest day of the entire year could still be ahead.
Dry Ground Makes The Heat Worse
Hall also pointed to the lack of rainfall as one reason the heat may be so difficult to break.
Dallas-Fort Worth is finishing August with virtually no measurable rain, which Hall said would place the month among only a small handful of Augusts since 1898 with no measurable rainfall if the final total holds.
Parts of the Plains and lower Mississippi Valley are also running more than two inches behind on rainfall over roughly the past month and a half, with little relief expected during the next couple of weeks.
That creates an unpleasant feedback loop. Dry soil warms more quickly than wet soil, so prolonged drought allows temperatures to climb more easily, while greater heat then dries the landscape even further.
It is a simple process, but it helps explain why stubborn heat waves can become so difficult to dislodge once both drought and strong high pressure become established at the same time.
Hall said the outlook around Labor Day continues to show a moderate risk for extreme heat stretching from the Plains through the Mississippi Valley and into portions of the Tennessee and Ohio valleys, with some areas running roughly 10 degrees above normal during the first week of September.
Severe Storms Ride The Edge Of The Heat
The northern boundary of the heat dome will bring a very different problem.
Hall said the Storm Prediction Center is now highlighting a severe-weather threat for Wednesday across parts of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, including areas around New York, Philadelphia, Newark, Buffalo and Rochester.
Roughly 38 million people are within the broader area he discussed, with damaging winds and hail appearing to be the main threats. Hall said one or two tornadoes are also possible.
The basic setup involves thunderstorms developing along the northern edge of the hot air and then moving southeast into a warm, humid environment. Storm chances could continue from Tuesday through Friday in portions of the region.
Hall also said the National Weather Service in Washington was monitoring the possibility of organized clusters of strong to severe thunderstorms around the middle of the week.
Heavy rain may become a separate concern. Parts of New Jersey have already received more than five inches of rain, according to Hall, and he said a flash-flood signal is appearing across portions of the interior Northeast and New England by Wednesday.
This is one of the more notable aspects of the pattern because the same heat dome responsible for extreme temperatures farther south can also help create a sharp boundary where thunderstorms repeatedly form along its northern edge.
The West Sees A Completely Different Pattern
Conditions west of the heat dome look almost like another season entirely.
Hall said an atmospheric river is expected to reach Washington and Oregon on Wednesday, bringing rainfall into parts of the Pacific Northwest.
That rain could be particularly welcome around ongoing wildfires. Hall noted that roughly eight million acres have already burned this year, making additional precipitation potentially helpful in affected areas.
The sharp contrast is another sign of the larger atmospheric imbalance Hall described. While the central and eastern United States deal with late-summer heat, parts of the West are seeing cooler and wetter weather under a very different branch of the same broader jet-stream pattern.
And behind much of that, Hall said, is the exceptional warmth in the Pacific.
Atlantic Goes Quiet As Pacific Explodes
The difference between the Atlantic and Pacific tropical seasons has become one of the clearest signs of El Niño’s influence.
Hall said the Atlantic has produced only four tropical storms so far this season, all of them weak and short-lived, with no hurricanes. Total storm energy is running at only around 11 to 13 percent of normal.
If the Atlantic were to reach September 12 without a hurricane, Hall said it would mark the latest first hurricane of a season since 1941.
Two areas being watched by the National Hurricane Center were each around a 10 percent chance of development in Hall’s forecast, including the remnants of Dolly and another area of showers in the Gulf, but neither appeared especially organized.
Hall attributed much of the Atlantic’s inactivity to strong upper-level winds related to El Niño. When the Pacific warms dramatically, atmospheric changes can increase wind shear over the Caribbean and Atlantic, disrupting developing tropical systems before they can organize.
He said wind shear over the Caribbean earlier this summer was the second-highest measured since satellite records began around 1979, exceeded only by 2015.
Still, Hall cautioned against assuming the season is finished. He pointed to 1992, when the first named storm did not arrive until August 17 and ultimately became Hurricane Andrew, as an example of why a quiet start does not guarantee a harmless finish.
Meanwhile, the Pacific has been far more active. Hall said Tropical Storm Karina was expected to strengthen while remaining offshore, while Lowell was of greater interest because of its location east-southeast of Hawaii.
He said Lowell could become a significant hurricane early this week, with winds potentially reaching around 105 mph by Wednesday. Most guidance kept the storm south of Hawaii, although some projections curved it farther north toward the islands between September 4 and September 7.
September May Be Only The Beginning
Despite all the attention surrounding El Niño, Hall said its direct effect on fall temperatures is often less dramatic than people expect.
Even very strong El Niño events do not necessarily control September and October weather by themselves. However, he said the current September outlook contains one interesting feature: the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast are among the few areas not favored to run warmer than normal for the month.
The Climate Prediction Center, Hall said, considers El Niño part of the reason for that pattern.
That means the first week of September may begin with intense heat, but the picture could become considerably more complicated afterward.
The stronger effects of El Niño often become easier to see later in fall and especially during winter. Hall compared the current Pacific warmth with 2015 and 1997, while stressing that neither year should be treated as a direct prediction for what happens next.
Those winters produced wildly different weather in different places, including major ice storms, tornado outbreaks, heavy rainfall, extreme warmth and historic snowstorms. Washington, D.C., meanwhile, received almost no snow during the 1997-98 winter despite the strength of that El Niño.
That history is a useful reminder of how misleading it can be to reduce El Niño to a simple warm-winter or cold-winter label. Its influence changes storm tracks and atmospheric circulation, but the local result can vary enormously depending on where individual systems develop.
For now, Hall’s larger point is that the Pacific has moved into territory rarely seen in modern records, and the effects are already showing up through extreme heat, a suppressed Atlantic hurricane season, a highly active Pacific and shifting storm tracks across the country.
September may therefore be less about one single dramatic event and more about a weather pattern that keeps changing shape as an unusually strong El Niño continues to build.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
