El Niño conditions are developing in the Pacific, with meteorologists monitoring what could become one of the stronger events in recent decades. The cyclical Pacific warming pattern has begun its typical climb toward a December or January peak, and forecasters are tracking potential weather disruptions that historically affect harvests from India to southern Africa to the American South.
The conventional reading of El Niño treats it as a familiar, manageable cycle — something that arrives every two to seven years, gets monitored, and passes. What complicates that picture: this El Niño is layering onto a baseline atmosphere that is already warmer and wetter than any prior El Niño year in recorded history, and the interaction between the two forces is not yet well understood.
Some forecasters are calculating the possibility of a very strong event. The previous El Niño, in 2023–2024, ranked among the stronger events in the observational record and contributed to 2024 becoming one of the hottest years on record.
The expected regional pattern is uneven by design. India, a major rice producer, could see a weaker monsoon, which could trim yields. Southern Africa is bracing for drier, hotter conditions that could cut maize production — a pattern World Weather Attribution documented during the last cycle, when El Niño-driven drought drove acute food insecurity across the region. Southern U.S. states, from California to the eastern seaboard, are expected to face a wetter-than-normal year, raising flood risk for cropland.
Climate scientists note that because El Niño impacts diverse geographies, the effects vary widely by region. The bigger unknown: how this El Niño interacts with climate change is still an active area of research.
The historical worst case is sobering. The 1877 El Niño, one of the strongest on record, collided with colonial-era policies and contributed to widespread famines across Asia, Brazil, and northern Africa. Modern food systems are more interconnected and better warned, but they are also more dependent on a narrower set of breadbasket regions — most of which sit squarely in El Niño's path.
The story matters beyond meteorology because it sits upstream of nearly every choice on a grocery shelf. When rice, maize, and wheat yields wobble, prices ripple through animal feed, processed foods, and the fertilizer-intensive supply chain that holds the whole system together.
Some governments will adapt by shifting planting calendars or boosting imports, which can keep shelves stocked. The people who lose are often smallholder farmers whose livelihoods depend on a single growing season. Adequate supply at the global level, in other words, is not the same thing as resilience at the household level — and that gap is where the next several months will be felt most sharply.
