Every few years, the weather folks start tossing around the terms El Niño or La Niña, predicting cooler or warmer temps, higher or lower amounts of precipitation, milder or harsher-than-usual weather. Occasionally, an El Niño year gets upgraded to a “Super El Niño,” but this year, we’ve got a doozy they’re calling a “Godzilla El Niño.”

Sounds impressive, if maybe a bit terrifying. But what does it really mean? Should we be worried? Mitchell Moffit of AsapSCIENCE shared a helpful video that breaks it all down, visuals included, in less than five minutes. Watch:

An exceptionally dramatic rise in ocean temperatures

An El Niño means a rise in ocean temperatures of 0.5 degrees above average or more. (A La Niña is the opposite, a drop of 0.5 degrees below average.)

“The reason this El Niño is getting so much attention is because it just broke the record for the highest temperature ever recorded by the phenomenon,” Moffit explains, showing a chart with a line that sits at the top as an outlier. “And we’re still months away from its potential peak.”

Moffit says that as of the making of this video, which was uploaded on September 24, 2026,........

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