In the middle of the Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest coastline, the sea warmed to 29.7°C. Instruments had never recorded that number there before. And the effects of those few degrees have already reached rice fields in India, forests in Indonesia and hospitals in Peru.
El Niño is a warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that reshuffles weather across the whole planet every few years. In 2026 it became one of the strongest ever measured. For the world, that means drought in Asia and southern Africa, heavy rain in South America, new heat records and food prices that may keep climbing into 2027.
There is also a twist: the worst part may still be ahead of us. Not this year, but next. We will get to why.
What is El Niño, in plain words?
El Niño is one phase of a natural cycle in which warm Pacific water slides from west to east, and the rain follows it. In a normal year, the trade winds (steady winds that blow along the equator from east to west) push the warm surface layer away from South America toward Asia, according to NOAA, the US agency that tracks oceans and weather.
Picture a bathtub and a hair dryer. Keep blowing across the water and the warm layer piles up at one end. Turn the dryer down, and the water sloshes back. The ocean works the same way: the trade winds weaken, and warm water creeps east toward Peru and Ecuador.
Why does that matter on land? Warm water heats the air above it. The air rises, forms clouds and falls as rain. Move the warm patch, and the rain moves with it:
- Indonesia, Australia and India get less rain, so droughts and fires follow;
- the coasts of Peru and Ecuador get flooded instead;
- winds and currents shift in a chain reaction elsewhere.
The cycle has an opposite phase too, La Niña, when the trade winds blow harder than usual and push even more warm water toward Asia. But in 2026 the world is at the other extreme, and it is an unusually strong one.
Why is the 2026 El Niño called a super El Niño?
Because on the main yardstick, the water temperature in a patch of ocean called Niño 3.4, it broke every record. According to Europe's Copernicus climate service, the water there reached 29.70°C in September 2026. That beats the peaks of the three biggest El Niños on record: 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 (France 24, citing Copernicus).
US forecasters see the same picture. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center reported on October 8 that the anomaly (how much warmer the water is than its usual average) in Niño 3.4 had reached +2.1°C. It put the chance that the event becomes stronger than any El Niño since 1950 during October-December at 83% (NOAA CPC).
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO, the UN's weather and climate agency) goes further. It says tropical Pacific waters could run 3.8°C above average between November 2026 and January 2027 (WMO).
One honest caveat. Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo told AFP it is too early to call this the strongest El Niño ever. The service now uses a newer index that adjusts for the overall warming of the oceans, and by that measure this event has not yet passed the old ones, though he said it is still a very large event. Put simply: the raw temperature record is real. The record for pure strength is still open.
Will 2026 be the hottest year on record?
It could be, but it is not guaranteed. September 2026 was the second-warmest September ever measured, with surface air 1.63°C above pre-industrial levels (the climate before mass industry, in the late 1800s). Average ocean surface temperature set an outright September record: 21.05°C, beating 20.92°C from 2023 (Copernicus).
The odds rose fast. Berkeley Earth, an independent research group, put the chance of a record-hot 2026 at 69% in August, up from 12% a month earlier, as reported by Business Standard (Business Standard).
Now, the twist from the start. The ocean stores heat for months and releases it into the air slowly. Buontempo expects this El Niño to last into 2027, and the Australian forecaster Weatherzone notes that a new global heat record is often set in the year after an El Niño forms (Weatherzone). The biggest temperature hit may land in 2027.
Heat also strains power grids. We explained how grids work, and why whole regions sometimes go dark at once, in Blackout: why the lights go out for millions at once.
Still, a global average is just a number in a report. What El Niño does in specific places is far more telling.
Where will El Niño hit hardest?
Countries around the Pacific and Indian Oceans and much of Africa take the biggest blows, some from drought and others from floods. The WMO expects warmer-than-usual conditions over almost all land, but rainfall splits: severe drought in some regions, heavy rain and flooding in others (WMO). Region by region:
- North America: El Niño's main effects show up in winter, when storm tracks shift (NOAA).
- Europe: the direct link is weak, but the WMO expects a warmer autumn across almost all land, Europe included.
- Latin America: in early September heavy rain and high waves hit the coasts of Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. In Ecuador alone, more than 30,000 people were affected (CuencaHighLife).
- Africa: East Africa expects heavy rain from October to December, while southern Africa faces drought and smaller maize harvests (Al Jazeera).
- South Asia: India's monsoon (the summer rainy season that much of its farming depends on) ended 12.6% below normal, the weakest since 2015 (DSIJ).
- Southeast Asia: Indonesia logged more than 5,000 fire hotspots by July 29, well above the El Niño years of 2015, 2019 and 2023. Its weather agency, BMKG, expects El Niño to last into early 2027 (The Jakarta Post).
- Russia and Central Asia: the effect is limited. Russia's Hydrometcenter gives a 65-69% chance of a winter near or above normal across most of the country, with the Black Sea coast and the Far East most exposed (Yandex Weather).
One important point: the WMO warns that El Niño's strength alone does not decide how bad things get in any single country. The same super event can pass gently over one region and hammer the next.
If you live far from the tropics, this may all feel distant. But El Niño has a short route into every supermarket.
Why does El Niño make food more expensive?
Because a drought in one country shrinks its harvest, that country holds on to its grain, and global prices creep up. The chain looks like this: less rain → less rice or wheat → exporters limit sales → prices rise everywhere.
This is not theory. India, the world's largest rice exporter, could see its 2026 rice output fall by about 10 million tonnes, and planted area was almost 4% lower than a year earlier as of September 11 (Business Today). There is a precedent: when India restricted rice exports in 2023-24, rice prices elsewhere in Asia jumped 22%. For now, traders say India's large stockpiles should let it avoid new curbs.
World food prices are already rising. The FAO Food Price Index (from the UN's food agency) climbed to 136.0 points in September 2026, its highest since November 2022, with cereals up 5.1% in a month (FAO). To be fair, the FAO blames transport disruptions, including the Strait of Hormuz, as well as weather.
How much of this is El Niño? An IMF-based estimate cited by insurer Allianz says past El Niños pushed global food prices up by roughly 5% over a year. Its analysis flags Indian rice and Southeast Asian palm oil as the most exposed (Allianz Research). Vegetable oils and coffee can stay expensive for up to a year after an El Niño, CNN reports (CNN). Whether you shop in Berlin, São Paulo or Almaty, the message is the same: coffee, cooking oil and rice are unlikely to get cheaper in the coming months.
There is a bigger number, too. Dartmouth researchers Christopher Callahan and Justin Mankin calculated in Science (2023) that the world economy lost $5.7 trillion in the five years after the 1997-98 El Niño, and $4.1 trillion after 1982-83 (Dartmouth). But the estimates disagree: the World Bank put the 1997-98 cost to governments at $45 billion, more than 100 times less, and some economists call the Dartmouth figures too high. What is safe to say: the bill runs to tens of billions at the very least.
Money is not the only cost. Some damage is counted in hospital beds, not dollars.
Is El Niño dangerous for your health?
The main risks are mosquito-borne infections, shortages of water and food, and smoke from wildfires. Warm weather and puddles after heavy rain are perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
It is already happening. On October 20, Peru's health ministry issued an epidemiological alert warning that El Niño could worsen dengue (a viral fever spread by mosquitoes). By October 17 the country had logged 76,784 cases, up 137% on 2025 (The Rio Times).
Children face the highest risk. UNICEF estimates that more than 347 million children in nearly 100 countries live where unusually wet or dry conditions are expected between October and December 2026 (UNICEF). The largest group is in Asia and the Pacific (190 million). In Eastern and Southern Africa it is over 162 million, two in every three children in the region.
Smoke is its own problem. Peat fires in Indonesia create a thick haze that in 2015 drifted as far as Malaysia and Singapore (Mongabay). Schools closed, and people wore masks for weeks.
Which raises a natural question: is this nature, or is it us?
Is climate change to blame?
El Niño itself is a natural cycle that existed long before factories and cars. But it now plays out on a planet that is already warmer, so it breaks records more easily. The WMO puts it plainly: El Niño years usually bring higher global temperatures, and combined with human-caused warming, that can produce new records (WMO).
Think of El Niño as a wave and global warming as the tide. The same wave used to stop short of the front step. With the water higher, a wave of the same size floods the porch.
Whether climate change makes El Niños themselves stronger or more frequent is still debated. Callahan and Mankin estimated that if it does, 21st-century economic losses could reach $84 trillion. That is a conditional scenario, not a forecast.
That leaves one last question: what does all this mean for you?
What should you do right now?
No need to panic, but no reason to shrug either. El Niño's effects arrive with a delay of months, which gives you time to prepare.
Editorial view: headlines like "the Earth will dry up" sell fear rather than help. The world has been through the El Niños of 1997-98 and 2015-16. Based on data from the WMO, NOAA and the FAO, we think the main practical effect for most readers is not a disaster outside the window, but a slow rise in the price of some foods and riskier travel to certain countries.
- Check your national weather service, not secondhand headlines: NOAA, the Met Office, or the service in your country.
- Traveling to Peru, Ecuador or Indonesia before spring 2027? Check dengue and wildfire smoke warnings, and pack insect repellent.
- Do not stockpile food. Price rises play out over about a year, according to the IMF estimate, and a cupboard full of rice will not protect you from that.
And one two-minute step. Open your national weather service website and find the seasonal outlook for this winter. See what it says about your region: warmer than normal, or close to it.
Those 29.7 degrees in the middle of the Pacific feel far away. Now you know how they travel to your weather, your plate and your wallet. Knowing is half the preparation.
Sources
- Copernicus: second-warmest September (2026)
- France 24 / AFP: record 29.70°C in Niño 3.4 (2026)
- NOAA CPC: ENSO Diagnostic Discussion, October 8, 2026
- WMO: El Niño set to become very strong (2026)
- UNICEF: over 347 million children exposed (2026)
- FAO Food Price Index, September 2026
- Dartmouth: Callahan and Mankin, Science (2023)
- Allianz Research: Super El Niño risk (2026)
- NOAA Ocean Service: What are El Niño and La Niña?
- The Rio Times: Peru dengue alert (2026)
- The Jakarta Post: BMKG outlook for Indonesia (2026)
- Business Today: India rice output (2026)
