In September, farmers in India were watching the skies with unusual anxiety. India’s rainfall was running well below normal after a weak monsoon start, leaving cotton, soybean, rice, maize and pulses exposed at a critical stage of growth.
The consequences reach beyond the farm. Weaker harvests mean lower rural incomes, higher food prices, and a difficult choice for policymakers over whether to restrict exports or increase imports. India may yet get enough rain to limit the damage. But the country is already providing an early glimpse of what happens when a warming world meets a powerful El Niño.
El Niño is not a new phenomenon. It is a natural cycle in which changes in Pacific sea temperatures alter atmospheric circulation and redistribute heat and moisture around the planet. What makes the present episode unusual is its speed and projected strength.
The World Meteorological Organisation says El Niño is now firmly established and has an exceptionally high probability of persisting through February 2027. Forecasts suggest it will strengthen into a strong event, potentially exceeding the intensity of previous El Niños recorded since 1950. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, United States) estimates a 69 per cent chance that the October-to-December period will produce an event that exceeds the previous threshold for a historic El Niño.
It is tempting to declare every powerful weather event a consequence of El Niño, or to treat an El Niño forecast as a prediction of what will happen in every country. Neither is scientifically defensible. El Niño changes the odds. It shifts atmospheric circulation in ways that make some kinds of weather more likely. However, local outcomes depend on season, geography and other climate systems. The Indian Ocean Dipole, for example, is expected to become positive at the same time as this El Niño, and the two can reinforce or modify one another. Climate change adds another layer, raising the background temperature from which these natural variations operate.
India is one of the countries where the stakes are greatest because the southwest monsoon is central to agriculture, water supplies and the rural economy. Historically, El Niño has been associated with weaker Indian monsoon rainfall, particularly in north-western India. But the relationship is not a rule: some El Niño years have produced near-normal or even above-normal rainfall in parts of India.
The connection between El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian rainfall has also become less straightforward in recent decades. What is clearer is that a strong El Niño tends to weaken the broader Asian monsoon circulation, increasing the risk of deficient rainfall. In 2026, that risk is already visible. India has experienced a substantial rain shortfall, and September rains are particularly important because they determine the final stages of summer crops and the soil moisture available for planting winter wheat, rapeseed and chickpeas.
Therefore, El Niño can become an economic shock. A poor harvest can lift food prices and raise demand for government support. This is especially true in a country where food occupies a large share of household spending and where agricultural output influences rural consumption. The effects can spill into trade, too. A shortage of sugar, pulses, vegetable oils or cotton can alter import and export policies, transmitting a weather disturbance in the Pacific into global commodity markets. The recent weakness of India’s monsoon is already prompting precisely these concerns.
The effects become more dramatic closer to the Pacific. El Niño shifts warm surface water eastwards, taking the thunderstorms that normally dominate Indonesia and the western Pacific with it. Indonesia and parts of the Maritime Continent therefore tend to become hotter and drier, raising the risk of drought and wildfire. At the same time, rainfall increases across parts of the central and eastern Pacific, with some regions of South America becoming much wetter. This is one reason El Niño can produce floods in one part of the world and drought in another, even though both are responses to the same oceanic disturbance.
Africa illustrates the same paradox. El Niño often brings drier conditions to southern Africa during its rainy season, threatening crops, livestock and water supplies in countries heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture. But eastern Africa can experience the opposite outcome. The October-to-December ‘short rains’ in the Greater Horn of Africa are often enhanced during El Niño, increasing the risk of floods and landslides even as other parts of the continent face drought. The latest WMO outlook expects wetter-than-normal conditions across parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya later this year. That may replenish reservoirs and pastures, but excessive rain can destroy crops, damage infrastructure and increase the risk of water- and vector-borne disease.
Southern Africa presents the darker side of the equation. During El Niño, rainfall tends to be suppressed across much of the region, while temperatures rise. For economies already struggling with water insecurity, a failed rainy season can reduce maize and other staple-crop production, increase food-import requirements and put pressure on already limited fiscal resources. However, even here the relationship is not mechanical. The Indian Ocean Dipole and other oceanic and atmospheric conditions can strengthen, weaken or reverse the typical El Niño signal. Africa is therefore not facing one El Niño problem but several regional ones, each with different timing and consequences.
Europe is further removed from the Pacific, so the signal is weaker and less predictable. That does not mean Europe is insulated. El Niño can influence the position and strength of the jet stream and other atmospheric circulation patterns, producing seasonal shifts in temperature and precipitation. Current WMO forecasts point to a north-south contrast, with a greater likelihood of wetter conditions in parts of southern Europe and drier conditions in northern Europe during the coming season. However, confidence is lower than for regions closer to the tropics. Europe is also entering this episode with an unusually warm climate baseline; the same circulation anomaly can have more damaging consequences when soils, rivers and vegetation are already stressed by heat and drought.
This is why the most important feature of the current El Niño may not be the Pacific temperature record itself, but the world into which it has arrived. The planet has warmed substantially since the last great El Niños of 1982–83 and 1997–98. Climate change does not appear to be making El Niño more frequent or intense. However, it raises the background temperature and can amplify the consequences of its associated heat and rainfall extremes. A very strong El Niño superimposed on exceptionally warm oceans is therefore a more formidable proposition than the same natural phenomenon operating in a cooler climate.
The implications reach well beyond weather. Drought can reduce hydroelectric generation and agricultural output; floods can damage roads, factories and ports; heat can increase electricity demand for cooling while reducing labour productivity. Food markets can tighten just as governments try to contain inflation. Poorer countries are particularly exposed because their economies often depend heavily on agriculture and also because households have fewer ways to insure themselves against a failed harvest. A climatic disturbance that begins thousands of kilometres away can therefore become a problem for central banks, finance ministries and food-importing governments.
The sensible response is neither panic nor complacency. Forecasting has improved enough to give governments months of warning with economic value. Farmers can adjust planting decisions; water authorities can manage reservoirs; governments can prepare food stocks; utilities can plan for shifts in electricity demand; humanitarian agencies can pre-position supplies. The WMO is explicitly urging governments and climate-sensitive sectors to use seasonal forecasts for early action. The challenge is to turn a probabilistic forecast into practical decisions without pretending that the forecast is certain.
There is also a larger lesson. El Niño is natural, but the vulnerability it exposes is increasingly man-made. A farmer cannot control the temperature of the Pacific, but governments can determine how efficiently water is used, how resilient crops are, how much food is stored and how quickly warnings reach vulnerable communities. They can also determine how rapidly the world continues to warm.
The coming months may produce the strongest El Niño in the modern record—or merely one of the strongest. Either way, it is a reminder that natural climate variability has not disappeared in the age of climate change. It has become more consequential. The Pacific may provide the trigger, but the scale of the damage will depend on how prepared the rest of the world is.
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