The 2026 El Niño climate phenomenon has become the strongest on record, scientists confirmed this week, with daily sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern Pacific reaching 3.05°C above the long-term average on 19 September — surpassing the previous record of 3.02°C set during the powerful El Niño of 2015. Forecasters warn that the event has not yet peaked, with its maximum intensity expected later in the year, meaning further records are likely to fall in the weeks ahead.
El Niño — a naturally occurring cycle, appearing roughly every two to seven years, in which trade winds weaken and warm water spreads eastward across the equatorial Pacific — is already reshaping weather patterns across the globe. In the Pacific, it has supercharged Hurricane Polo, which intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 165 mph in under 24 hours, churning off the coast of Guerrero state in south-western Mexico. The Atlantic, by contrast, has recorded no hurricanes at all this season — the first time in 112 years that none had formed by 21 September — a direct consequence of the strong wind shear that El Niño produces over that ocean basin. India's southwest monsoon has delivered 15% below-normal rainfall. Wildfires in Indonesia are affecting an estimated 12.5 million people, and the reservoir supplying Jakarta — a megacity of 42 million — is shrinking at an alarming rate.
The consequences extend well beyond extreme weather. Southeast Asia faces acute threats to food security, with the Mekong River basin — which flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam — under strain from reduced rainfall, dam construction and ongoing disruption. Rice farmers in Thailand and palm oil producers in Indonesia and Malaysia, which together supply roughly 85% of the world's palm oil, are already facing difficult choices. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate El Niño could push global food commodity prices up more than 15%, potentially driving at least 49 million more people into acute food insecurity by the end of 2027, according to the UN World Food Programme. The crisis is compounded by an energy shock linked to the war in Iran, which has already strained government finances across the region.
The human cost could be staggering. A report from the Climate Impact Lab, based at the University of Chicago, projects that El Niño-driven heat could cause up to 451,000 additional deaths worldwide between June 2026 and February 2027, compared with a typical year. The heaviest toll is expected in the world's poorest regions — the Sahel, the semiarid belt along the southern edge of the Sahara, faces an estimated 66,800 additional heat deaths, while South and Southeast Asian countries including India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia are also among the hardest-hit. Wealthier nations generally have greater access to air conditioning and healthcare, researchers note, meaning inequality will heavily shape who suffers most.
Scientists are careful to stress that the unprecedented strength of this El Niño does not automatically translate into proportionally unprecedented impacts everywhere, since every event unfolds differently. Nevertheless, the convergence of record ocean temperatures, pre-existing climate change and compounding geopolitical stresses makes this episode particularly dangerous. "The fact that it has already exceeded previous records — with several weeks to go before it peaks — shows the enormity of this El Niño," said Professor Adam Scaife, Head of Long Range Prediction at the UK Met Office. Researchers from the Climate Impact Lab note that conditions this year may preview what global warming could make routine within two decades — a warning they say should spur governments to act now on heat-warning systems, cooling infrastructure and anticipatory financing before conditions worsen further.