Is El Niño Affecting Manta Season in the Maldives?
Every year between June and October, hundreds of manta rays converge on a single small bay in Baa Atoll, Maldives, to feed on dense plankton blooms. This year, that natural event is unfolding alongside a much larger one: the return of El Niño, now officially declared by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. The two events are connected by ocean temperature and current patterns that span entire ocean basins — so it’s worth understanding what El Niño actually is, how it moves through the marine food web, and what that could mean for manta rays half a world away from where it forms.
What El Niño Actually Is
El Niño is not a storm or a single weather event. It’s a shift in the ocean-atmosphere system of the tropical Pacific that recurs every two to seven years. Under normal conditions, strong trade winds push warm surface water westward across the Pacific, allowing cooler, nutrient-rich water to rise up along the coast of South America. During El Niño, those trade winds weaken or reverse, and the warm water that’s normally piled up near Asia sloshes back east, raising sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific.
This is one phase of a longer cycle scientists call ENSO — the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The opposite, cooler phase is La Niña; in between is a neutral state. As of mid-2026, NOAA has confirmed El Niño conditions are present and expected to strengthen into the Northern Hemisphere winter, with forecasters putting meaningful odds on the event reaching moderate or strong intensity by year’s end.
Why a Pacific Event Matters in the Indian Ocean
El Niño’s direct warming happens in the Pacific, but its effects ripple outward through global atmospheric circulation. Shifts in Pacific sea surface temperature change the pattern of rising and sinking air across the tropics, which in turn shifts rainfall belts, monsoon timing, and wind patterns over the Indian Ocean and other ocean basins. This is why El Niño years are associated with unusual weather as far away as East Africa, India, Australia, and Southeast Asia — and why the Maldives, sitting in the heart of the Indian Ocean monsoon system, is not entirely insulated from it either.
How Ocean Conditions Drive Manta Ray Behavior
Manta rays are filter feeders. They don’t hunt; they swim with their mouths open, straining huge volumes of water for zooplankton, the tiny drifting organisms that form the base of the marine food chain. Where the plankton goes, the mantas follow.
In Baa Atoll, that relationship is concentrated at Hanifaru Bay, a small, funnel-shaped inlet inside a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. During the southwest monsoon (roughly April to November), tidal currents and monsoon winds funnel plankton-dense water into the bay, creating one of the most reliable large-scale manta feeding aggregations anywhere in the ocean. Researchers studying the site have documented these aggregations forming around the interaction of tides, monsoon currents, and the bay’s unusual shape — a fairly precise set of physical conditions that has to line up for the spectacle to occur.
Where El Niño Could Influence the Equation
Plankton blooms are sensitive to two things El Niño is known to affect: water temperature and current strength. Warmer surface water is often more nutrient-poor and can suppress the kind of upwelling that fuels plankton growth, while changes in monsoon strength and timing can shift exactly when and how strongly currents push plankton into bays like Hanifaru. In an El Niño year, both factors are in play across the wider Indian Ocean basin.
That doesn’t mean the season is cancelled or even necessarily diminished — El Niño’s effects vary significantly by region and by event, and the Maldives’ monsoon-driven aggregation site is a different system from the open-ocean upwelling zones most directly tied to Pacific ENSO dynamics. What it does mean is that 2026 is a year where the timing and intensity of plankton blooms at Hanifaru Bay are somewhat less predictable than in an average year, which is part of why marine researchers and dive operators across Baa Atoll are paying closer attention to conditions this season.
A Wider Pattern Worth Watching
Beyond manta feeding, El Niño years are also linked to broader marine impacts that matter for ocean health generally — including elevated risk of coral bleaching when sustained warm water stresses reef systems, and shifts in the abundance or distribution of other plankton-dependent species like whale sharks, which also visit Baa Atoll during the same season. None of this is unique to 2026; it’s part of the recurring rhythm of ENSO that marine scientists have tracked for decades. What’s notable is simply that this particular cycle is now active and strengthening at the same time as one of the Indian Ocean’s most studied marine wildlife events is underway.
Following the Season
For anyone wanting to observe this firsthand, Hanifaru Bay remains a strictly managed, snorkel-only marine protected area, with visitor numbers capped to limit disturbance to the rays. Local operators across Baa Atoll, including those based in Maalhos, track real-time conditions throughout the season and are generally the most reliable source for how the bloom is actually behaving in any given month — useful context in a year where the broader climate pattern adds an extra variable. Island Luxury Retreat Maalhos, located close to Hanifaru Bay, runs a seasonal Manta Season package for travelers who want to experience the aggregation directly — details are available here for anyone planning a visit.
