El Niño Begins with Rising Global Heat and Typhoon Risks for Korea
- Doyoung Lim
- Jun 15
- 2 min read
June 15, 2026
Doyoung Lim
El Niño, the natural Pacific weather pattern that pushes up global temperatures, has officially begun, according to the US scientists. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared that El Niño conditions are now underway in the tropical Pacific, with sea surface temperatures having risen sharply in recent months. Many forecasts suggest this could end up as a super El Niño and even be among the strongest ever recorded. Scientists are expecting that El Niño could bring another recordable hot year, most likely in 2027, with disruption to weather, food supplies, and economies into that year.
Surface temperatures in the central and tropical Pacific regions have now passed the average threshold to define an El Niño event. According to NOAA, the winds above the equatorial Pacific begin to shift, a sign that the atmosphere is now becoming warmer, as are the warmer ocean temperatures. According to NOAA’s June expectation, "There is a 63% chance of a very strong El Niño between November and January, which would rank among the largest El Niños in the historical record." Some US and European countries have shown that temperatures in the tropical Pacific potentially rose above the average level by the end of the year, with a strong prediction.
In Korea, the more pronounced the El Niño tendency, the more the number of powerful “super typhoons” increases, which in turn raises both the total number of typhoons and their average intensity. As global warming and El Niño get severe, the likelihood that typhoons will travel northward all the way to the Korean Peninsula increases.
Earlier, the Korea Meteorological Administration predicted that both temperatures and precipitation this summer will be higher than normal, and about 2.5 typhoons will affect the Korean Peninsula. The experts concluded that summer typhoons must be taken seriously and closely monitored, even when they do not strike the Korean Peninsula directly.
