Earth's climate doesn't operate in isolated regional pockets. What builds up as a temperature anomaly in the tropical Pacific eventually shows up in the Indian monsoon, in southern Africa's water table, in Australia's wheat harvest. El Niño makes that global connectivity visible in the most direct way possible — through droughts, floods, and food shortages distributed across six continents simultaneously.
El Niño events are estimated to affect crop yields on at least a quarter of global croplands. The one confirmed for 2026 is shaping up to be one of the strongest on record. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center gives a 63% probability of a very strong event between November 2026 and January 2027 that could rank among the largest in the historical record since 1950.
Ocean currents transfer significant amounts of heat from Earth's equatorial areas toward the poles and play an important role in the climate of coastal regions worldwide. The map below shows the global layout of these systems.
Peru lost over USD 1.4 billion in fishmeal and fish oil exports when its 2023 anchovy season was cancelled, leaving around 18,000 fishermen without income for nine months. The cause was a temperature shift in the central Pacific. The Peruvian anchovy fishery is the largest in the world in terms of catches, its productivity built entirely on cold water rising to the surface from depth. When trade winds ease, warm water pulses east in vast deep waves, lowering the thermocline and suppressing the upwelling that keeps those Pacific coastal waters cold. That is El Niño reducing one fishery to near-zero. Across six continents, the same mechanism reshapes rainfall.
That Pacific oscillation is what scientists call ENSO — the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, involving fluctuating ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific coupled with changes in the overlying atmosphere. El Niño is its warm phase. La Niña is the cold counterpart. The cycle shifts between the two phases every two to seven years.
Who gets drought, who gets floods
In 2026, drought is expected across the Caribbean, Central America, northern Brazil, central and northern India, central and southern Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia.
Australia's agricultural exposure is particularly severe. El Niño historically contributes to the worst droughts on record there, with total winter crop production falling by up to 40% and farm GDP declining by an average of 13%. Australia accounts for only 3% of global wheat production yet normally supplies between 10% and 15% of world wheat trade, so a bad harvest there hits global food markets almost immediately. In India, El Niño could reduce the southwest monsoon active from June through September and damage the rabi crop planted after the monsoon ends. In Indonesia, crude palm oil output may fall by 1-2 million metric tons due to El Niño-linked dry weather.
Elsewhere the picture shifts considerably. The southern United States, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Middle East and central Asia are expected to see above-normal rainfall, with flooding risk rising across parts of South America and East Africa.
La Niña's wetter zones fall mostly across different latitudes. During La Niña, Southeast Asia, Australia, northern South America, and Melanesia become more likely to see unusually wet conditions, with southern Africa often receiving above-normal rainfall as well. East Africa and parts of Central America tend to go drier under that pattern.
Acting on what we already know
According to WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, El Niño does not have to be a recipe for disaster. The key is lead time. A farming region warned of drought in January can still shift crop choices before planting. A health ministry that sees a wetter-than-normal season six months out can mobilise before disease cases climb. Seasonal models now run one to six months ahead, giving agriculture, health, emergency management, and humanitarian logistics time to act before impacts arrive rather than after.
El Niño conditions are expected to persist through at least November 2026 with near or above 90% probability. That forecast is already in hand. What matters now is what gets done with it.
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