EBEYE, Marshall Islands — Facebook Live videos from Ebeye yesterday showed large waves washing over the dock and crashing against the sea barriers. Was this El Niño? Yes and no.

Kwajalein is already well into its rainy season, and September has been particularly wet. Kwajalein had recorded 6.62 inches of rain—about two-thirds of its normal rainfall for the entire month—and regional forecasts call for above-normal rainfall across the Marshall Islands through November. At the same time, El Niño is strengthening rapidly: ocean temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region were about 1.8°C, or 3.2°F, above normal last month. NOAA now gives greater than a 90% chance that El Niño will become very strong this fall and winter.

But the high waves in Ebeye appear to have come from a strong ocean swell from a powerful hurricane that passed north-northeast of Hawaii last week being the most likely source.Videos from Ebeye on Sunday showed large waves washing over the dock and pushing water onto the normally dry surface as a northerly swell reached the Kwajalein Atoll.

The flooding appears to have resulted from several conditions coming together: a 4- to 5-foot swell arriving from the north, high astronomical tides around the new moon, and the way waves interact with Kwajalein’s reef and lagoon. Despite the high water at the dock, people Chikin Melele spoke with on Ebeye praised the island’s seawall barriers, saying the coastal protections appeared to be doing their job as waves struck the shoreline.

Watch on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1HmfJPQNgb/

The National Weather Service had forecast a 4- to 5-foot northwest swell for Saturday, shifting to a 4- to 5-foot north swell on Sunday. Local wind waves, by comparison, were forecast at only 2 feet or less.

So, the waves were not simply rough water produced by strong local winds.

Videos from Ebeye support the NWS forecast. The dock extends westward into the lagoon, while waves can be seen moving across it from the north.

The timing may have made the effects more noticeable. Evening high tide on Sunday was at 5:27 p.m., right when videos began circulating on social media.

The previous day was also a new moon, putting Kwajalein in a period of spring tides. Spring tides occur around new and full moons, when the gravitational effects of the moon and sun combine to produce greater differences between high and low tides.

The source of the swell has not been officially confirmed, but one likely explanation lies thousands of miles to the north: former Hurricane Lowell.

Lowell became an exceptionally powerful hurricane in the Central Pacific earlier this month. On September 2, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center reported sustained winds of 155 mph, just 2 mph below the threshold for a Category 5 hurricane. Lowell remained extremely powerful for several days while generating a large field of high seas.

As the hurricane weakened, Lowell’s remnant moved into the north-central Pacific, north-northeast of Kwajalein Atoll. The energy the storm had transferred into the ocean continued traveling outward.

NOAA’s High Seas Forecasts tracked post-tropical Lowell near 29°N, 170°W on September 11, surrounded by a broad area of seas roughly 8 to 16 feet high. As the remnant continued northwest, seas around the system were forecast to reach approximately 18 feet.

Unlike a storm itself, ocean swell can travel thousands of miles from where it was generated. Long-period waves may eventually reach islands experiencing relatively ordinary local weather.

There is evidence that such swell was moving through the Marshall Islands. A PacIOOS/CDIP wave buoy at Pikareej, Arno Atoll, recorded a 4.6-foot swell with a dominant period of 13 seconds early September 11 RMI time. NWS subsequently forecast northwest-to-north swell across the Marshall Islands. Though NWS has not specifically said that Lowell caused the waves at Ebeye, Lowell’s location, large wave field, and the direction and timing of the swell make it the most likely source identified so far.

A Wet September — and a Strengthening El Niño

The waves cannot be attributed directly to El Niño. But they are occurring during an increasingly active period of Pacific weather as the 2026 El Niño strengthens.

Kwajalein is already well into its rainy season. Long-term averages are approximately 9.5 inches of rain in July, 10.5 inches in August and 10.1 inches in September. October, averaging about 12.3 inches, is normally even wetter.

This September has started particularly wet. By September 12, Kwajalein had already recorded 6.62 inches of rain—roughly two-thirds of the normal rainfall for the entire month. A Pacific climate outlook issued September 9 forecasts above-normal rainfall for both northern and southern Marshall Islands from September through November.

NOAA also says El Niño is strengthening. In August, sea-surface temperatures in a large area of the equatorial Pacific called the Niño 3.4 region were about 1.8°C—or 3.2°F—warmer than normal. That may sound like a small temperature difference. Across a vast area of tropical ocean, however, it represents an enormous amount of additional heat capable of changing winds, rainfall and tropical cyclone activity across the Pacific. NOAA now gives greater than a 90% probability that El Niño will become very strong during fall and winter 2026–27.

El Niño did not necessarily cause Sunday’s waves in Ebeye, but So, El Niño did not necessarily cause the waves at Ebeye. But the western Pacific has already experienced two destructive super typhoons this year. Super Typhoon Sinlaku caused widespread damage in Chuuk in April before striking the Northern Marianas, while Super Typhoon Bavi brought destructive winds, flooding and coastal impacts to the Marianas in July. El Niño cannot be blamed for any individual storm, but it is changing the larger Pacific weather pattern, affecting rainfall, winds and the conditions that influence tropical cyclone activity as the Marshall Islands move through the wetter months of the year.

The high waves seen in videos on social media illustrate something more immediate for low-lying Pacific communities: weather does not have to be severe overhead for conditions at the shoreline to become hazardous. A powerful storm can transfer energy into the Pacific thousands of miles away. Days later, that energy arrives as ocean swell—and when it meets a high tide, for a reef and a low-lying atoll, a distant storm suddenly becomes a local event.