Other Strong El Niño Years Show What California's 2026 Winter Might Look Like

CBS Bay Area

September 28, 2026

No two El Niño years are the same, but one of the best ways to try to figure out what's going to happen this winter is to look back at previous winters that had similar setups going into the season.

However, scientists only started recording El Niño years and their impacts in 1950, and although there have been 28 El Niño events since then (and 25 La Niñas), only three of those winters saw very strong El Niño events like this year: 1982-82, 1997-98, and 2015-2016.

The past 28 events on average saw wetter-than-normal conditions across the entire state of California; Southern California saw 110-120% of normal rainfall, while northern CA averaged 100-110%. Weak El Niño events normally see below-average precipitation for the Bay Area, while Southern California still averages above normal. In fact, all of the central and southern coast of California averages wetter-than-normal for moderate, strong, and very strong events.

Click here for the full story via CBS San Francisco Bay Area

CBS Local Digital Media personalizes the global reach of CBS-owned and operated television and radio stations with a local perspective.