What El Niño means for you

We humans have named storms for centuries, absolutely ninja-starring random labels at them like ‘Beryl’ (more a polite British aunt), ‘Koinu’ (puppy in Japanese) and ‘Hildebrand’ (one of many Aussie politicians disliked by an early local meteorologist — legend).

The idea is to simplify and streamline public comms, and give any impending disaster a certain sense of gravitas that’s lacking from, say, ‘Hurricane R236-JPEG-final’.

So if you think about it, it makes perfect sense we’d dub one of the most dangerous yet naturally occurring weather patterns ‘the child’ (just ask any parent).

And now, after weeks of foreboding data (including via our May 21st briefing), the UN’s World Meteorological Organization just sounded the alarm over the next El Niño.

By way of quick recap, El Niño rolls around once every two to seven years, when west-blowing trade winds weaken, allowing warm water to shift eastward across the Pacific.

As routine as this might sound, it can mean more floods and landslides along the Pacific side of the Americas, plus droughts and wildfires across Asia and Oceania.

So with the WMO warning there’s an 80% chance of an El Niño by August, we’re now tracking…

Agriculture 

El Niño seems to magically appear at the worst times — the last one (2023-24) hit right as markets were eating wheat and fertiliser shortages from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

It feels similar today: the Hormuz squeeze is already spiking prices for natural gas and downstream products like fertiliser, projected to average 30% higher this year than last. And recall half the world relies on these kinds of synthetic fertilisers for their food supply.

But then throw in a drought in Asia, and we could see 10-20% drops in yield for palm oil, rice, sugar, cocoa, and wheat, driving higher food and vegetable oil prices.

Over on the other side of the Pacific, say a prayer for the world’s largest single-species fishery, providing ~25% of the world’s fishmeal: the Peruvian Anchovy. El Niño can cause coastal stocks to collapse, with downstream hits to buyers like farmed seafood.

And yet notwithstanding these costs, there are also some winners, with Argentine, Brazilian, and US soy and maize farmers sometimes enjoying wetter conditions that drive bumper harvests (a possible counterweight to the upward price pressures above).

Energy

This is a double-whammy: heatwaves tend to drive more A/C power consumption, and yet droughts can hit hydro-power supplies in places like India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But the net oil price signals can be mixed, depending on whether slower Asian growth outweighs any parallel pivots from hydro to hydrocarbons.

Shipping

Panama is already dusting off its El Niño plans, which it only just shelved from the last El Niño! Recall its eponymous Canal uses freshwater to literally lift and lower ships between the Atlantic and Pacific, so when the rain stops, Canal traffic slows, disrupting 5% of global maritime trade and ~40% of US container traffic. Not now, Niño.

Emerging markets

A big one to finish: if El Niño delivers a lighter monsoon season to Asia, that can mean weaker harvests, higher food prices, and fresh pressure on India’s rupee, Indonesia’s rupiah, and other Asian currencies already getting stretched by energy prices.

And all just when you thought 2026 couldn’t get any spicier.

Sound even smarter:

• The WMO says any El Niño would last until at least November, with most models forecasting a moderate or strong year, hence the unofficial ‘super El Niño’ talk.

• The El Niño (de Navidad) moniker comes from fishermen who noticed unusually warm currents off the coast of Peru around Christmas time.

• For Atlantic and Eastern Pacific hurricanes, the WMO has six lists of storm names rotating annually, and alternating between male and female for each storm. For typhoons, countries in the Western Pacific submit the storm names.

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