Research and analysis

Impacts of El Niño on the UK

Updated 17 September 2026

This is not a statement of government policy.

Rapid projects support government departments to understand the scientific evidence underpinning a policy issue or area by convening academic, industry and government experts at a single roundtable. These summary meeting notes seek to provide accessible science advice for policymakers. They represent the combined views of roundtable participants at the time of the discussion and are not statements of government policy.

This publication considers the following question, taken from a meeting note of a roundtable chaired by Professor Stephen Belcher (Met Office, Chief Scientific Adviser) facilitated by the Government Office for Science on 23 June 2026.

What do models say about the likely impacts of El Niño on the UK over the next 12 months?

El Niño describes the warming of sea surface temperature, which occurs every few years, often concentrated in the central-east equatorial Pacific.

Summary of roundtable findings

A significant El Niño is likely to occur towards the end of 2026, with some forecasts predicting the strongest event on record.

The direct effects of El Niño will be felt across the globe and may heighten instances of extreme weather in regions such as India, East Asia, South America, parts of Africa and the West Pacific.

UK weather systems tend to be less directly affected by El Niño but given the potentially unprecedented nature of this El Niño, these effects are uncertain.

Secondary effects of El Niño on global food supply chains have the potential to reduce yields and drive up prices, particularly in regions with already low food security.

The UK could experience higher prices for products such as rice, and certain tropical commodities (for example: cocoa, coffee) but the precise effects remain difficult to predict.

Changing weather patterns caused by El Niño could increase global demand for liquified natural gas (LNG), placing additional pressure on a global market already facing uncertainty from the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts.

The UK currently has a sufficient energy buffer for the coming winter but the effects of El Niño remain uncertain: Europe could be particularly vulnerable to rising prices and increased global competition for energy supplies, such as LNG.

El Nino forecasting

1. There are clear signals indicating further development of the current El Niño event, the peak of which is expected in December 2026 (IRI, 2026; CPC, 2026).

2. The magnitude of El Niño can be measured based on the temperature rise above average in a particular zone of the Pacific Ocean. A sustained rise of 0.5 degrees Celsius or more is the threshold for defining an El Niño event. Current forecasts from June 2026 show a range of possibilities for the magnitude of the upcoming El Niño event, ranging from 2 degrees Celsius above average up to a possible 4 degrees Celsius.

3. The lower estimate of 2 degrees Celsius would still represent a significant El Niño event comparable to the strongest events on record. According to the latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast, there is a 63% chance of El Niño being a very strong event (above 2 degrees Celsius) (NOAA, 2026). This likelihood has more than doubled in the last 2 months, meaning there is much higher confidence now in forecasting a significant El Niño.

4. The effects of El Niño will occur over and above the effects of climate change. Global average surface temperature has risen by approximately 0.25 degrees Celsius since the last El Niño of a similar magnitude in 2015/2016 (Copernicus EU, 2026), meaning it is possible 2027 will surpass 2024 and become the warmest year on record.

5. The mean error for forecasts of the peak of El Niño 6 months in advance is approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius across different models. This error halves for forecasts made 3 months in advance (meaning from September this year) (Ehsan and others, 2024).

6. However, there remains some inherent uncertainty in the statistical and dynamical models used to forecast El Niño due to unpredictability in atmospheric weather systems. Climate variability in the Atlantic and Indian oceans could cause either amplification or a dampening of El Niño effects.

7. Of the different types of models used to forecast El Niño events, dynamical models have been shown to be more accurate at predicting the onset of El Niño compared to statistical models (Ehsan and others, 2024).

Impacts of global weather patterns

8. The Southern Oscillation is one example of a ‘teleconnection’ in which climate and weather anomalies occurring in different areas of the world are interconnected through oceanic and atmospheric processes (US Department of Commerce, no date).

9. A combination of historical data from past El Niño events and increasingly accurate seasonal forecast models can provide a forecast of both the likely sequence and the location of El Niño’s impacts on global weather systems (Met Office, 2026).

10. Impacts of El Niño will likely be felt first with forecasted dry conditions in India and Southern Asia, Central America, and the Sahel region in Africa from June through to October. Forecasts also predict a drought in the current summer monsoon season (WMO, 2026). As the El Niño event develops, impacts will next be seen in the West Pacific, East Africa, Australia and South America.

11. During boreal winter or austral summer (December 2026 to February 2027), the El Niño event will peak, with impacts likely in Southern Africa, Northeast Australia, North America and the West Pacific (WHH, no date).

12. Although the El Niño event is expected to end in spring 2027, its impacts may continue for several more months.

13. There is concern that some of El Niño’s impacts on global weather could exacerbate humanitarian crises. For example, increased flooding in Somalia could have damaging effects on an already struggling population.

14. Extreme weather, particularly heavy rainfall and flooding, has been linked to increased transmission of diseases including Malaria and Dengue.

Impacts on UK weather

15. The impacts of El Niño on UK weather are less certain and cannot be confidently predicted. Since this may be the largest El Niño to date it could result in unforeseen effects on UK weather. Indeed, some evidence suggests that a relatively large El Niño can result in different weather patterns in the North Atlantic compared to smaller events (Toniazzo and Scaife, 2006; Hardiman and others, 2019).

16. However, based on observations from historic cases and signals from current computer models (Ayarzagüena and others, 2018; Ineson and Scaife, 2008; Scaife and others, 2017), UK weather could be affected as follows:

a. From October to December 2026, there is a slightly increased chance of the UK experiencing stronger westerlies (prevailing winds from the west) and low-pressure patterns which are associated with increased storminess and an increased risk of heavy rainfall and flooding.

b. In early 2027, there is a slightly increased risk of easterlies and northerlies (prevailing winds from the east and north) and ‘cold snaps’, characterised by a sudden drop in temperatures.

17. The long-term global warming of the planet has a larger effect on the UK’s temperature than individual El Niño events. Indeed, historical data does not demonstrate a systematic increase or decrease in annual average temperatures in the UK in the years of an El Niño, nor in the years immediately following (but this is not to say that there are not seasonal impacts on temperature).

18. Public communications in the UK on El Niño can sometimes be misleading, often confusing global warming effects with El Niño and with regional UK weather.

Impacts on global food systems and UK food supply chains

19. The global food system is already under stress from recent shocks (for example, the COVID-19 pandemic [Rivington and others, 2021], Ukraine war and recent events in the Middle East). Climatic shocks and weather events caused by El Niño are expected to put the system under further stress.

a. Weather impacts associated with the upcoming El Niño are likely to worsen food security challenges, particularly in regions already under strain (for example, India, West Asia and parts of Africa).

20. Shocks to global food systems can occur through:

a. ‘Multiple breadbasket failures’, whereby more than one key production centre is shocked (for example by El Niño [Li and others, 2025]) causing vulnerabilities to supply chains and meaning certain foods become hard to substitute from elsewhere.

b. Impacts on commodities with localised production (such as olive oil, coffee, cocoa), where global supplies are highly concentrated in certain countries.

21. There are certain foods whose global yields may increase in the event of El Niño, such as soybeans (Iizumi and others, 2014), grown in South America.

22. While some have estimated that El Niño could cause food prices to double in the UK (Schroders, 2026), the data are limited and the confidence in this estimate is low. The last El Niño, in 2023, had virtually no discernible impact on UK food prices.

23. Any impacts of El Niño on the UK food supply will be nuanced, and it may be challenging to disentangle these from impacts caused by other factors.

a. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has led to rising fertiliser costs, which are forecast to increase by more than 30% in 2026 (Fitch Ratings, 2026) – this may result in a decrease in crop yields independent of El Niño.

24. Around 50% of food in the UK is imported, including around 80% of fruit and vegetables, often from countries such as Spain and Morocco, where El Niño could exacerbate drought.

25. Supply of affected commodities to the UK will likely continue, but reduced global yields are expected to result in higher prices for consumers. Key risks include:

a. Rice: multiple key producers (for example: India, Thailand, Vietnam) are expected to face weather impacts from El Niño, with potential reductions in yields and exports.

b. Wheat and grains: co-occurring, or increasing, droughts in Australia and the USA could lead to reduced exports of wheat and grains. However, some data suggests that historically, El Niño can result in a slight drop in global wheat prices (Ubilava, 2017).

c. Tropical commodities (such as coffee, cocoa): these are particularly vulnerable (refer to point 20b).

26. Impacts on the supply of global staples (such as maize, wheat) may be felt less by consumers in the UK compared to impacts on commodities produced in spatially concentrated areas.

27. Increased prices for certain imported commodities can drive up inflation. Chocolate makes up almost 6% by weight of Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) basket of food and non-alcoholic beverages (compared to 2.3% on average across Europe) used to measure consumer price inflation (Barmes, 2025).

28. Food prices may increase in anticipation of expected El Niño impacts, not just as a result of realised production losses. This can occur when governments impose export controls in anticipation of reduced yields of domestically grown foods, for example Indian rice.

29. Disruption to availability of key ingredients needed for food processing (for example, emulsifiers) could also increase food prices.

Impacts on UK domestic food production

30. The impacts of El Niño on domestic UK weather, and by extension food production, is more uncertain than some of the aforementioned impacts on global food systems.

31. Increasing variability in weather patterns makes it more challenging for farmers to plan ahead as experienced in recent years.

32. Adverse conditions for UK domestic food production are characterised by high rainfall throughout the crop-planting seasons (autumn, winter and spring).

a. During the last El Niño, consistently high rainfall from early autumn of 2023 until spring 2024 led to poor harvests because winter crops sown in autumn could not be replaced by spring crops. Similar wet and stormy conditions also occurred during the Autumn of the 2015/16 El Niño (McCarthy and others, 2016).

33. In the UK, potential impacts on domestic food production may be partly mitigated by the presence of diverse soil types, which provides some buffering against weather changes (although this is unlikely to be significant where there are consecutive years with adverse conditions).  

34. Adverse weather that reduces grass growth could limit silage production, which in turn could increase demand for imported fodder (such as soy) and lead to secondary impacts on dairy, pig and poultry production.

Impacts on energy systems

35. The global liquified natural gas (LNG) market is already under stress due to events in the Middle East, in particular the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has constrained approximately 20% of global LNG flow (NESO, 2026), and damage to some Qatari LNG production facilities limiting availability.

36. Although the main countries exporting LNG are not necessarily going to be those most severely affected by El Niño weather patterns, there are still likely to be some effects which cumulatively, and in combination with geopolitical factors, have impacts on global supply and demand.

37. LNG is primarily used for domestic heating in winter and cooling in the summer via electricity generation. More pronounced hot or cold weather would likely increase demand and cause already elevated energy prices to rise.

38. In the UK, it is possible that El Niño may cause a milder and windier start to winter, which would increase domestic wind power generation and reduce dependencies on imported LNG for power generation and heating.

39. However, colder and drier conditions later on in winter could increase demand for LNG. The UK will be in competition for LNG with numerous other countries, including China and Japan, who may also experience El Niño-induced weather effects that drive up their demand.

40. Europe’s gas reserves for the upcoming winter are lower than usual due to current inflated prices of LNG. Europe may therefore be particularly vulnerable to increased competition for LNG, which could cause short-term pressure in gas markets similar to that seen in summer 2022, triggered by the Ukraine war.

41. Nevertheless, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) is forecasting a secure and reliable electricity supply for Great Britain through winter 2026/27, with an estimated 8.8% buffer of electricity over the expected peak demand (NESO, 2026). Crucially, this is a higher margin than during the 2022 energy crisis, due to reasons including increased availability of French nuclear energy.

42. Other types of energy supply could also be impacted by El Niño, such as hydropower, of which China is one of the world’s largest suppliers. Reduced rainfall can lead to lower energy outputs from hydropower dams while excessive rainfall and flooding can damage dam infrastructure.

Meeting participants

The following participants attended the meeting:

• Stephen Belcher (Met Office CSA, Chair)

• Michael Bradshaw (University of Warwick)

• Ioana Colfescu (University of St. Andrews)

• Mat Collins (University of Exeter)

• Akshay Deoras (National Centre for Atmospheric Science and University of Reading)

• Paul Dodds (UCL)

• Brian Hoskins (Imperial College London and University of Reading)

• Tom Lancaster (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit)

• Amanda Maycock (University of Leeds)

• Mike Rivington (James Hutton Institute)

• Adam Scaife (Met Office)

• Liz Stephens (University of Reading)

• Emily Wallace (National Energy System Operator)

• Monika Zurek (University of Oxford)

Reference list

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Copernicus EU. (2026). Global warming reached 1.37°C in 2025.

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Ehsan M, L’heureux M, Tippett M, Robertson A and Turmelle J. (2024). Real-time ENSO forecast skill evaluated over the last two decades, with focus on the onset of ENSO events.

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Hardiman SC, Dunstone NJ, Scaife AA, Smith DM, Ineson S, Lim J and Fereday D. (2019). The Impact of Strong El Niño and La Niña Events on the North Atlantic.

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