The WMO predicts that the El Niño 2026 phenomenon could reach an anomaly of up to 3.8 °C in the tropical Pacific, and that this will occur between November and January. The UN has already mobilized aid for 11 countries.
Experts’ forecasts allow for anticipating a crisis that threatens crops, water, and food. The United Nations warns that El Niño 2026 could reach unprecedented intensity and worsen hunger for about 50 million people.
The World Meteorological Organization forecasts a sea-surface temperature anomaly close to 3.8 °C in the region, between November 2026 and January 2027. This is a regional forecast, with its peak expected in December, and it is aggravated by climate change.
Given the risks of droughts, floods, and extreme heat caused by El Niño 2026, the United Nations is calling for upfront funding and has mobilized more than $50 million for 11 countries. The priority is to protect livelihoods before humanitarian needs rise.
The serious risks of El Niño 2026
Two UN agencies issued today, Wednesday, a strong appeal for immediate assistance for communities already suffering the impact of the strongest El Niño climate pattern on record.
“The current El Niño 2026 episode could be of unprecedented intensity, literally outside the tracking charts we have used over the past four decades, and it will peak toward the end of 2026, but its impacts will be felt well after,” said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
According to the latest Global Seasonal Climate Update from the WMO, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, epicenter of the extreme El Niño 2026 phenomenon, could rise up to 3.8 °C above the mean between November 2026 and January 2027.
While an anomaly of 0.5 °C above normal is enough for the WMO to trigger an El Niño alert, Saulo highlighted the worriness that the impact of a 3.8 °C Niño-driven anomaly is unprecedented.
El Niño 2026 is an unprecedented phenomenon
Previous El Niño episodes linked to 3 °C anomalies brought “very substantial impacts worldwide,” but “we are beyond that limit, outside our records, outside our statistics of what we can expect,” the agency chief emphasized.
“We are already witnessing extreme weather events and we expect them to multiply and cascade as El Niño 2026 intensifies,” Saulo noted. “But a powerful El Niño does not have to be a recipe for a humanitarian disaster. We have scientific forecasts and early warnings to save lives and protect livelihoods.”
Echoing Saulo’s call for preventive efforts that strengthen the resilience of the world’s most vulnerable communities, the UN’s emergency relief chief, Tom Fletcher, described El Niño 2026 as a “colossus… a wrecking ball that will likely impact Latin America, eastern and southern Africa, Asia and the Pacific with extreme heat, droughts and floods
A lot of money is needed to avert disaster
The next two weeks will be crucial to avoid an aggravation of the humanitarian crisis linked to El Niño 2026, Fletcher said, and he added that Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya urgently need funding and emergency supplies before heavy rains arrive.
In southern Africa, the priority is to deliver seeds and safeguard livestock, while Central America requires immediate support to protect livelihoods. Across Asia and the Pacific, countries must prepare for a series of climate shocks, including droughts, floods and cyclones.
“It would be an extraordinary failure to anticipate this crisis of El Niño 2026, hear the experts’ forecasts, and still waste the opportunity to protect the people who are in its path,” Fletcher warned.
About 50 million people could face rising hunger due to this weather phenomenon, he stressed, before citing an estimate from the African Development Bank that it will cost African countries between $10 billion and $20 billion “and will reduce GDP by between one and two percent.”
As natural as it is dangerous
El Niño is part of a natural oscillation of the climate system: it typically appears every 2 to 7 years and its episodes usually last between nine and twelve months, according to the WMO. Its development involves changes in both the ocean itself and the atmosphere of the equatorial Pacific.
El Niño 2026 occurs in a climate that is being overheated by human activities, and this context can amplify its impacts without every drought or flood being a direct consequence of that phenomenon.
