Last updated: September 2026
If you’ve been following the news, or you’ve asked us about it directly, you’ll know there’s a “super” El Niño building in the Pacific Ocean right now which is expected to strengthen over the next few months, peaking towards the end of 2026 with the effects continuing to be felt into early 2027.
Clients booked for late 2026 and early 2027 are understandably asking what this means for their trip, so we thought it was time for an updated version of the FAQ we first wrote back in 2015, the last time an event this size was on the cards.
The honest, upfront answer for how El Niño might affect the Galapagos Islands: we don’t fully know yet, and neither does anyone else. But here’s what the science says so far, what a highly experienced Galapagos naturalist guide is seeing on the ground right now, and what it’s likely to mean for your trip.
What is El Niño, in plain terms?
El Niño is a natural, recurring shift in ocean and atmospheric patterns across the tropical Pacific. Every two to seven years or so, the cold, nutrient-rich water that normally wells up along the Galapagos coast weakens or disappears, and the sea warms instead. Warmer water holds far less food for the marine life that depends on that upwelling, while on land, the extra rain that usually comes with it does the opposite: it’s a boom time for plants and the animals that eat them. We go into both sides of that below.
Events are graded by strength: weak, moderate, strong, or very strong, based on how far above average the sea surface temperature gets in the key monitoring region of the Pacific. The most severe event on record, in 1997–98, pushed well into “very strong” territory. So did 2015–16. This one is currently forecast to match or exceed both.
How strong is this one actually going to be?
As of September 2026, forecasters at the World Meteorological Organization and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center put the odds of El Niño lasting through winter 2026–27 at close to certain, and the odds of it reaching “very strong” intensity at more than 90%.
The Niño 3.4 index, the standard measure meteorologists use, was already running at roughly 2.0–2.7°C above average by mid-August, and most forecasting models expect it to peak somewhere between +2.5°C and +3°C above average surface level sea temperature around October to December 2026, which would put it among the strongest events ever recorded. A few models even push higher than that.
We’d add a note of caution here, echoed by the guide we spoke to: forecasting exactly how strong an El Niño will get, and how long it will hang around, is genuinely difficult at this time, because so many variables can push it stronger or weaker.
The event could keep strengthening over the next couple of months, or it could start to fade earlier than expected. Right now, the guide tells us it’s noticeably warmer than usual out on the islands, but it isn’t raining yet – it feels more like typical December weather arriving early. Whether the rain properly sets in, and how much of it there is, should become much clearer around October or November. We’ll update this post as we know more.
What does El Niño actually do to the Galapagos Islands?
This is where it gets interesting, and also where the trade-offs lie. El Niño doesn’t harm the islands so much as flip which species have a good year and which have a hard one.
Marine life has a tougher time of it. Without the cold upwelling, which brings nutrients to the ocean surface, there’s far less plankton, which means fewer of the small fish, like anchovies and sardines, that the whole marine food chain relies on. Sea lions, penguins, marine iguanas, and seabirds like the blue-footed booby and waved albatross can all struggle to find enough to eat. In a strong event, that can mean failed breeding seasons and higher mortality, particularly among pups and chicks.
The Charles Darwin Foundation’s research team flags corals as especially vulnerable this time round too. Corals were hit hardest in 1982–83 and again in 1997–98, and a study published in the journal Science in August 2026 (led by researchers at the University of Michigan, using centuries of coral core samples from the Galapagos) found that El Niño events have become measurably more intense over the last 40 years than at any point in the previous thousand, very likely because of the extra warming caused by climate change layered on top of the natural cycle.
Land life, on the other hand, tends to have a more fruitful time of it. The extra rain triggers a surge of new growth, seeds, fruit, and insects, which is exactly what Darwin’s finches, mockingbirds, land iguanas, giant tortoises, and lava lizards need to breed successfully. It’s not unusual to see much higher numbers of finch chicks, or land iguanas in far better condition, in the year or two after a strong El Niño. Marine iguanas have their own strange trick for coping in between: they can actually shrink their own skeletons by up to 5cm when food is scarce, then regrow them once conditions improve.
As our guide put it: “During a strong El Niño we totally skip the cold, dry season and instead have an extended warm, rainy season that can last as long as ten months.” For the land species, that’s good news. For marine life, though, nobody can say yet how hard this year will hit: it depends almost entirely on how warm the water gets, and for how long.
Will El Niño affect my trip to the Galapagos?
For the most part, no, not in any way that stops your holiday going ahead as planned. Here’s what we’d flag, and what we wouldn’t worry so much about.
Weather and itineraries: Expect more rain than a typical visit in the same months, but Galapagos rain is rarely a dramatic all-day event; it usually arrives as short, intense downpours, often overnight, followed by sunshine. The guide was on the ground for both the 2015–16 and 2023–24 events (a very strong and a strong El Niño respectively), and told us those trips ran close to normal, since there wasn’t in fact all that much rain, and the animals coped without the kind of mortality seen in 1982–83 or 1997–98. Neither of those more recent years came close to 1997–98, which is the one comparison meteorologists are watching most closely for this event.
Wildlife sightings: Snorkelling actually tends to stay good, or even improve, because less plankton in the water means better visibility, and there’s still plenty to see. You may see fewer sea lion pups and fewer penguins than in a typical year, since numbers can dip when food is scarce, but they won’t have disappeared. Land-based wildlife, the finches, iguanas, and tortoises, should if anything be putting on a better show than usual.
Our conclusion
Based on the last two comparable events, and what we’re hearing directly from guides on the ground, we expect excursions and activities to run pretty normally. We’ll keep this page updated as the picture becomes clearer through October and November, and if you have a trip booked and want to talk specifics, we’re always happy to.
Sources: World Meteorological Organization and NOAA Climate Prediction Center ENSO outlooks (via the IRI/Columbia ENSO forecast, updated August 2026); NOAA/NESDIS GEO-POLAR Blended SST Analysis (4 August 2026); Charles Darwin Foundation, “El Niño 2026 in Galápagos” (September 2026); Galapagos Conservation Trust, El Niño and La Niña explainer; Cole et al., Science (August 2026), on coral records and El Niño intensification; first-hand comment from a Think Galapagos naturalist guide, September 2026.
