Two UN agencies warn that the strongest El Niño on record is already battering vulnerable communities and urge immediate funding and preparedness to avert cascading disasters across continents.

Two leading United Nations agencies issued an urgent appeal on 21 October 2026 for immediate international assistance to shield the world’s most vulnerable populations from what they describe as an unprecedented El Niño event. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the current climate pattern is already delivering extreme weather and is set to intensify further, with impacts lasting well beyond its peak.

Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the WMO, stated that the event “could be unprecedented in strength – literally, off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades.” She noted that it will peak towards the end of 2026, yet its effects will be felt long afterwards. According to the latest Global Seasonal Climate Update from the WMO, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific may rise to 3.8°C above average between November 2026 and January 2027. An anomaly of just 0.5°C is normally enough to trigger an El Niño alert; a 3.8°C gap has no modern precedent.

Simply Unprecedented Strength

Previous El Niños associated with anomalies of around 3°C produced severe global impacts. Saulo stressed that the world is now “beyond that limit, out of our records, out of our statistics of what we can expect.” Extreme weather events are already occurring and are expected to multiply and cascade as the phenomenon intensifies. Yet she insisted that a powerful El Niño need not become a humanitarian catastrophe. “We have the science forecasts, the early warnings to save lives and protect livelihoods,” she said.

A Behemoth

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s emergency relief chief, described the event as a “behemoth… a wrecking ball that will likely tear through Latin America, eastern and southern Africa, Asia and the Pacific with extreme heat, droughts and floods.” He estimated that some 50 million people could face increased hunger as a direct result. An African Development Bank assessment cited by Fletcher suggests the phenomenon could cost African countries between $10 billion and $20 billion and reduce GDP by one to two per cent.

Independent scientific assessments support the UN warnings. By mid-October 2026, sea-surface temperature anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region had already surpassed the previous record set during the 2015-16 event, with some daily readings exceeding 3.3°C above average. Forecast models project a peak near or above 3.7-4.0°C, placing the 2026-27 event among the strongest, if not the strongest, in the instrumental record and possibly in the last millennium.

Funding Race Against Time

Fletcher emphasised that the next two weeks are critical. Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya urgently require funding and emergency supplies before expected heavy rains arrive. In southern Africa the priority is delivering seeds and safeguarding livestock. Central America needs immediate support to protect livelihoods, while countries across Asia and the Pacific must prepare for a combination of droughts, floods and cyclones.

“It would be an extraordinary failure to see this crisis coming, to hear the predictions from the experts, and yet still squander the opportunity to protect people in its path,” Fletcher warned. He has already released more than $50 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to assist 11 frontline countries, including Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan. The long-term consequences, he added, will be felt for months and potentially years, compounded by existing pressures on global supply chains linked to conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea.

Cascading Impacts Across Continents

El Niño is already reshaping weather patterns worldwide. In eastern Africa, drier conditions earlier in 2026 contributed to drought stress in Ethiopia and western Kenya, lowering Nile water levels and worsening food insecurity in Sudan. Forecasts now point to a wetter October-December rainy season in parts of the Horn of Africa, raising the risk of flooding after prolonged dryness. Southern Africa faces heightened drought risk just as the main rainy season begins, threatening crop production and water supplies.

In Latin America, extreme heat, drought and flooding are expected to hit hard. Central America, already vulnerable in the Dry Corridor, requires urgent livelihood protection. Parts of South America are seeing both excessive rainfall and drought risks depending on the region.

Asia and the Pacific confront a particularly complex mix of hazards. Indonesia has experienced its worst wildfire season since 2015, with nearly 900,000 hectares burned and toxic haze affecting millions across Southeast Asia. India’s monsoon has been significantly weaker than average in key periods, raising concerns for agricultural output. Sri Lanka has reported reservoir declines, emergency water deliveries and dual risks of drought in dry zones alongside potential flooding during the northeast monsoon.

South Asia on the Front Line

South Asian countries have already felt the early effects. In India, El Niño conditions contributed to rainfall deficits that prompted contingency planning for hundreds of districts and raised alarms over kharif crop production. Projections of excess heat-related deaths under the current “Super El Niño” place India among the most affected countries, with estimates of thousands of additional fatalities.

Sri Lanka faces threats to food production, power generation and foreign-exchange stability as reservoir levels drop and the risk of both drought and intense rainfall rises. Indonesia’s haze crisis, driven by drought and land-clearing fires under El Niño conditions, has closed schools, disrupted flights and caused widespread respiratory illness, while the government has resisted declaring a national disaster.

These regional experiences illustrate how a single global climate pattern can produce simultaneous, opposing extremes – drought in one area and floods in another – stretching the capacity of governments and humanitarian systems already under pressure.

Building Resilience Before Disaster Strikes

UN agencies are working with governments to embed disaster risk reduction into preparedness rather than waiting for crises to unfold. Examples include flood-control barriers in northern Chile, multi-year shelter strategies in cyclone-prone Madagascar, safer-shelter roadmaps in conflict- and climate-affected areas of Nigeria, and community-led flood defences in Yemen that have protected tens of thousands of displaced people.

Early-warning systems, anticipatory action and pre-positioned supplies offer the best chance of reducing loss of life and livelihoods. Fletcher and Saulo stressed that the science is clear and the window for preventive action remains open – but only briefly.

The current El Niño is occurring against a backdrop of long-term global warming that has already raised baseline temperatures and intensified extremes. Scientists note that the combination of a record-strength El Niño with elevated greenhouse-gas concentrations increases the likelihood of unprecedented heat, compounded droughts and severe flooding in vulnerable regions.

A Test of Global Solidarity

The UN appeal comes at a moment when humanitarian funding is already stretched by multiple crises. While CERF has provided rapid support, broader donor commitments remain insufficient relative to the scale of projected need. Historical strong El Niño events, such as 2015-16, required multi-billion-dollar responses that still left millions affected. The present event is forecast to be stronger and is arriving amid higher global temperatures and greater numbers of people living in high-risk areas.