The equatorial Pacific is the warmest on record
- Equatorial Pacific sea temperature is 3.3 °C above normal (the highest weekly reading since 1981).
- Great Sitkin: aviation colour code orange (watch).
- Super Typhoon Champi.
- 6 extreme-level weather alerts in force in the US today.
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Is the Pacific running hot?
Sea temperature in the key strip of the equatorial Pacific is above normal. That pattern is known as El Niño, and it tends to shift weather patterns around the world and push global temperatures up.
Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center, weekly Niño 3.4 temperature to 14 Oct. The official three-month index (RONI) reads +1.7 for the period centred on Aug 2026.
Are any volcanoes restless?
Colour codes are the aviation scale: green is normal, yellow an advisory, orange a watch, red a warning. NASA's event tracker lists 36 volcanoes worldwide with recent activity reports.
Sources: USGS Volcano Hazards Program (US volcanoes only), NASA EONET, and USGS earthquakes for Campi Flegrei and Vesuvius.
Are there any dangerous storms?
An alert colour reflects the likely effect on people, not just wind speed: red is the highest. 4 weaker tropical storms are also active.
Sources: Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) and NASA EONET. Alert colours are indicative.
Is flooding likely in England?
In the United States, 6 extreme-level weather alerts are in force.
A flood warning means flooding is expected; a flood alert means it is possible. Check your own area with the Environment Agency.
Sources: Environment Agency flood warnings (Open Government Licence v3.0); US National Weather Service. Counts are warnings in force when the page was last updated.
How big is the ozone hole?
The Antarctic ozone hole forms each southern spring. The thinnest part of the layer measures 116 Dobson units; a healthy layer reads about 300.
Source: NASA Ozone Watch, 20 Oct. Records begin in 1979.
Were there any big earthquakes?
About 20 earthquakes this size happen somewhere in the world on a typical day. The strongest, magnitude 4.9, struck at 00:07 UTC, near Nagqu, China. The day is not over, so the count can still rise.
Busier or quieter than usual, last 90 days
Worldwide the last 90 days brought 2,101 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more, 29% above the 1996–2025 average for 90 days. The marker on each bar is that country's own average.
Source: USGS. Larger dots are stronger; faint dots are the previous six days. Magnitude 4.5+ only, so counts compare fairly across the decades.
How much Arctic sea ice is there?
That is 11th lowest of 44 years for this date. In the 1980s there was about 9.1 million km² of ice at this time of year. The lowest on record for the date was 5.3 million, in 2020.
Source: NSIDC Sea Ice Index, 17 Oct. One bar per year for the same date. Average is 1981–2010.
Is the Sun causing trouble?
Nothing is expected to affect phones, GPS or the power grid today.
Source: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Bars show each day's highest Kp; 5 or more is a geomagnetic storm.
Is the air changing?
Carbon dioxide measured on Mauna Loa, Hawaii, in Oct 2026, against 333.5 in 1974.
Source: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory. The Mauna Loa series is the longest continuous record of carbon dioxide in the air.