El Niño Tracker
El Niño Tracker
This winter is shaping up to be the strongest El Niño ever recorded. So is Whistler actually feeling it? Every week we stack this season's temps and freezing level against the average of the last 10 seasons, down in the Village and way up top. Seasons run July 1 to June 30.
The big picture: a record El Niño
Out in the Pacific, El Niño is off the charts. In mid-September the key ocean patch in the central Pacific (Niño 3.4) hit +3.05 °C above normal, the biggest reading ever. For comparison, the monster 1997–98 El Niño peaked around +2.4 °C. NOAA puts the odds of this one beating every El Niño since 1950 at about 75%, with the peak expected between November and January and the effects hanging around into spring 2027. It's already helping push 2026 toward being the second-warmest year on record worldwide.
What it usually means for Whistler
El Niño reaches us through the winter jet stream, so the effects mostly show up December to February, not in the fall. Strong El Niño winters on the BC coast tend to run milder, with a higher freezing level: more rain at Village level, while the alpine usually still gets the goods. What to watch for on the charts above: the blue lines drifting above the dashed average from December onward, especially the freezing level.
Big-picture numbers as of October 3, 2026 (NOAA Climate Prediction Center, WMO). The charts above update automatically.
Show me the weekly numbers
Temps come from the Open-Meteo weather archive (ECMWF reanalysis adjusted for elevation), not one specific thermometer, so they might be a touch off from what the lift-top sign says. We call a week warmer or colder only when it's more than 1 °C off the 10-year average. The freezing level is our own estimate, worked out from the Village and alpine temps, so treat it as a ballpark (a week counts as higher or lower when it's more than 150 m off). Data: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Updated every few hours.