An unusually powerful El Niño is rapidly strengthening across the Pacific, setting up a period of heightened drought, flood, heat and food-security risks that could intensify through the end of 2026 and reverberate across the global economy well into 2027.
The World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that El Niño is now firmly established and is expected to become a very strong event, with a nearly 100% probability that it will persist through February 2027. It is the most unequivocal El Niño forecast the UN climate agency has issued.
“El Niño is being supersized before our eyes,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
For governments and markets, the warning is becoming increasingly immediate. The first major effects are expected to become more pronounced between September and November, before El Niño reaches its projected peak around November and December. Its influence on weather patterns and global temperatures could then continue well into 2027.
Where the risks are emerging
El Niño occurs when waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific become unusually warm, shifting atmospheric circulation and altering rainfall and temperature patterns thousands of kilometers away.
Those shifts are already coming into clearer focus.
For September through November, drier-than-normal conditions are more likely across the Indian subcontinent, southern and eastern Australia, southern Central America, parts of the Caribbean, northwestern South America and northern Europe.
At the same time, wetter-than-normal conditions are more likely across the Greater Horn of Africa, parts of Central Asia, southern Europe, western North America and southeastern South America. Above-normal temperatures are favored across most major land regions.
These are probabilities, not predictions of individual disasters. Even an exceptionally strong El Niño does not produce equally severe impacts everywhere.
But the emerging pattern gives governments a clearer sense of where pressure could build first.
Asia faces early pressure on food and fire risk
India is among the countries to watch most closely in the coming weeks.
Rainfall was already significantly below normal during parts of the 2026 monsoon, while rice, corn, soybean, cotton and other crops are moving through important stages of development.
A prolonged rainfall deficit could reduce yields, increase agricultural imports and add pressure to domestic food inflation.
Across parts of Southeast Asia, stronger El Niño conditions generally increase the risk of hotter and drier weather, creating potential pressure on rice and palm-oil production while also elevating wildfire and haze risks.
Those vulnerabilities are likely to become more important in the final months of 2026, as El Niño approaches peak intensity.
East Africa faces the opposite problem
Parts of the Greater Horn of Africa face a different set of risks.
Warmer and wetter-than-normal conditions are expected during the final quarter of 2026, increasing the possibility of heavy rainfall and flooding in vulnerable areas.
The region underscores why El Niño cannot simply be described as a global drought event. While some countries face declining rainfall, others can experience intense precipitation, flooding and landslides.
In both cases, the consequences can be severe where food insecurity, displacement or weak infrastructure already leave populations exposed.
The Americas face a divided outlook
El Niño’s effects are also likely to diverge sharply across the Americas.
Increased rainfall is favored across southeastern South America, while southern Central America, parts of the Caribbean and northwestern South America are more likely to experience below-normal precipitation during September through November.
In Central America’s Dry Corridor, repeated droughts have already left agricultural communities particularly exposed to another period of weak rainfall.
Further south, changing rainfall patterns could affect agricultural powerhouses including Brazil and Argentina, meaning the evolution of El Niño will be closely watched by global grain, soybean, coffee and livestock markets.
Australia and the Pacific brace for heat and drought
Southern and eastern Australia are also entering a potentially consequential period.
Below-normal rainfall is favored over the coming months, alongside higher temperatures. Historically, strong El Niño events have been associated with elevated drought and wildfire risks in parts of Australia, although the severity of any individual season depends on other atmospheric and ocean conditions.
For Pacific economies, impacts can range from pressure on freshwater supplies and agriculture to changes in tropical cyclone patterns and marine ecosystems.
The economic transmission point is food
The most globally consequential risk may emerge not from any single disaster, but from several agricultural regions being disrupted at once.
International trade can help absorb those shocks by allowing countries suffering crop losses to import food from regions with stronger harvests. But export restrictions introduced during periods of supply stress can amplify shortages and price increases.
That matters because El Niño is arriving amid existing pressures across the global food system, including elevated input costs and growing exposure to extreme weather.
A major El Niño affecting agricultural regions across South America, Africa and Asia could therefore add another source of volatility.
The outcome is not predetermined. Global inventories, trade flows, exchange rates and government policy will all shape how regional crop losses translate into international prices.
But synchronized disruptions across several major producers would increase the risk that what begins as a weather event becomes an inflation and development story.
The main event arrives late this year
The unusual strength of Pacific warming is one reason forecasters are increasingly concerned.
The Niño 3.4 region has already recorded exceptionally high temperature anomalies, while subsurface Pacific waters have also been far warmer than normal. Current projections point to further intensification before the event peaks toward the end of 2026.
The current event is already among only four El Niños to reach the “very strong” category in records dating to 1950. It could ultimately become the strongest observed, although that remains a possibility rather than a certainty.
That makes the next three to six months the critical window for governments.
Agricultural planning, water management, reservoir levels, humanitarian stockpiles, wildfire preparedness and flood protection undertaken now could materially influence the eventual human and economic toll.
“This exceptional El Niño demands exceptional preparation and response,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said.
Why 2027 matters
El Niño events generally last between nine and 12 months and typically peak between November and February. But their influence on global temperatures is often strongest in the year after they emerge.
That puts 2027 squarely in focus.
WMO officials have said 2027 has the potential to become the warmest year on record, although that outcome will depend on how the event evolves.
It is important to distinguish the two phenomena. El Niño is a naturally occurring climate cycle and is not caused by climate change. But it is unfolding against a substantially warmer atmospheric and oceanic baseline, which can intensify some of the heat and weather extremes associated with the event.
A test of preparedness
The developing El Niño is therefore becoming a test not simply of climate resilience, but of government capacity.
September through November will provide the first major indication of how closely current regional forecasts translate into impacts on rainfall, crops and water supplies.
November through early 2027 is likely to represent the period of greatest El Niño intensity.
And 2027 could bring the broader temperature consequences of that ocean warming into sharper relief.
Follow SDG News on LinkedIn
