El Niño and surf: why some winters never stop

What El Niño is

Every 2 to 7 years, the surface of the tropical Pacific along the equator warms up for several months. That is El Niño. The opposite, a cooler tropical Pacific, is La Niña. Forecasters announce both months ahead.

What it tends to do to surf

• North Pacific: in an El Niño winter, the Pacific jet stream tends to be stronger and to reach further east and south. Storms often grow bigger and track closer to California and Hawaii, so those coasts tend to get more large swell.
• Atlantic: El Niño tends to bring stronger wind high over the tropical Atlantic, which cuts hurricanes apart. Fewer hurricanes usually means fewer hurricane swells on the US East Coast and in the Caribbean.

"Tends to" matters. No two El Niño years are the same, and one winter can break the pattern. Use it as a hint for the season, and the forecast for the week.

Where you see it on BarrelFare

BarrelFare does not guess the season from El Niño. It reads each swell in the 16-day forecast as the storms make them, at every break, and finds the best trip from your airport when one lines up.

How to read a surf report and forecast