'El Niño on Steroids' Could Spawn the Biggest Wave Ever Surfed (Video)

While the climatologists continue to study models, analyzing the potential of an El Niño season incoming for 2026-27, armchair experts are also speculating.

This one could be big; the words “super” and “Godzilla” are being tossed around.

And so, if that mega El Niño does materialize, what does that mean for surfers? In short: potentially very large waves. Like previous big-wave windows, like the historic 2015-16 season. Below, Maui big-wave surfer Ridge Lenny dives into the possibility of an incoming super El Niño, and how it could create some of the biggest waves ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1vAKl5oPwkw

“I think that there’s a good chance that the biggest wave ever ridden will be attempted within the next year,” Lenny opens his video. “And you may be asking: How could anybody know that? Typically, I would agree with you. But the climatologists have spoken, and they’re talking about something called a ‘Godzilla’ El Niño.”

What is a “Godzilla” El Niño? For more on what exactly the phenomenon, here’s Alec Luhn, an environmental reporter for the New Scientist:

“A super El Niño is when that temperature anomaly in the eastern and central Pacific gets to be above two degrees Celsius. It’s pretty rare. It’s only happened three times [1982-83 , 1997-98, 2015-16] that we know from the record.”

It’s so rare, and tentatively so strong for this upcoming season, that some are even predicting: “Real potential for the strongest El Niño event in 140 years.”

For Lenny, he continued:

“This year is not looking like one of these typical El Niño seasons. They’re predicting extremely elevated ocean temperatures, which will basically lead to an El Niño on steroids. The last time we saw anything like this was the 2015-16 winter season. I remember it was just gigantic. World records were being broken. The sport of big-wave surfing was pushed to stratospheric heights.”

He concluded: “This could be a season that rewrites the books.”

It’s all speculation for now, but stay tuned.