What is El Niño – and should South Africans be worried?
· The South African
El Niño is back in the news, and if the past couple of summers felt unusually wet and green, that’s not your imagination.
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El Niño is a natural climate pattern in which sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean rise well above their historical average, reshaping rainfall, temperature and storm patterns across the globe.
What’s actually happening right now
According to the World Meteorological Organisation’s latest update, El Niño is now firmly established.
It’s expected to intensify into a very strong event, with a nearly 100% chance of persisting through February 2027, the first time a WMO bulletin has stated this with such certainty.
Weekly sea surface temperatures in the main monitoring region have run between 2.2 degrees Celsius and 2.6 degrees Celsius above average.
The event is forecast to peak toward the end of 2026.
A “strong” El Niño is defined as sea surface temperatures at least 1.5 degrees Celsius above normal.
A “very strong” event exceeds 2 degrees Celsius.
Only three previous El Niño events have ever crossed that threshold:
- 1982/83
- 1997/98
- 2015/16
NOAA now puts the chance of this year joining that list at greater than 90%.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres summed up the scale of it bluntly: “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes.”
Why this actually matters for South Africa
Most El Niño events bring below-average rainfall and above-average temperatures across Southern Africa.
In severe cases, they bring harsh drought.
The South African Weather Service’s (SAWS) seasonal forecast points to exactly that pattern.
Below-normal rainfall is the most likely outcome across most of the country from October to December 2026, with the November 2026 to January 2027 outlook showing a similar drier, warmer trend.
The last very strong El Niño, in 2015/16, triggered what South African authorities called the country’s worst drought in 23 years.
It significantly cut the national maize crop and caused severe water shortages across Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State.
SAWS has warned that this event, combined with ongoing global warming, could bring an even higher frequency of severe heatwaves.
It could also bring genuine water scarcity concerns.
There is a small silver lining.
Above-normal rainfall during the 2025/26 season improved dam levels and soil moisture across many summer-rainfall areas.
That gives the country a useful buffer heading into this event.
Experts caution, though, that this buffer alone doesn’t guarantee water or food security if conditions turn severe.
So, should we actually be worried?
The honest answer is: appropriately cautious, not panicked.
As one climate expert put it, “It really does not matter whether this is a record or Very Strong El Niño. It is about the impacts.”
A lot remains genuinely uncertain about how severe this specific event will turn out to be, and AccuWeather has said a clearer long-range forecast won’t be available until October 2026.
What is clear is that this is worth paying attention to, not living in fear of.
Staying informed, preparing sensibly, and watching how the forecasts develop over the next month or two is the most useful thing any of us can actually do right now.
Have you noticed any early signs of El Niño’s impact where you live yet?
Let us know in the comments below …