The likelihood of El Niño developing in 2026 has increased, with forecasts pointing to possible persistence into winter 2026���27. The event could become more disruptive than historical comparisons suggest because it would occur in a warmer climate system with higher greenhouse gas concentrations and stronger feedback risks. For businesses, the main risks are European weather volatility, commodity price increases, logistics disruption, and higher supply-chain uncertainty.
A possible Super El Niño in 2026 is becoming a material climate-risk issue for companies. The WMO says the likelihood of El Niño has increased from mid-2026, with expected impacts on global temperature and rainfall patterns. NOAA also estimates an 82% chance of El Niño during May–July 2026 and a 96% chance it continues through winter 2026–27, although the final strength remains uncertain.
The last major El Niño occurred in 2023–24, contributing to record global heat. Earlier “super” El Niño events include 1982–83, 1997–98 and 2015–16. The key question for businesses is whether 2026 becomes only a moderate El Niño or develops into a stronger event. Current signals include warming in the tropical Pacific, stronger model agreement, and forecasts showing El Niño persistence into winter. However, NOAA notes that no single strength category currently exceeds a 37% probability, meaning companies should plan for risk escalation without assuming the worst-case scenario.
What makes 2026 different is the climate baseline. A new El Niño would occur in a world with higher greenhouse gas concentrations, higher ocean heat content, and more stressed climate systems than during earlier historical events. This means the same El Niño signal may translate into stronger heat extremes, altered rainfall patterns, and more severe secondary effects. Climate feedback loops — including warmer oceans, reduced soil moisture, wildfire risk, and changes in atmospheric circulation — may amplify regional impacts beyond historical averages.
For Europe, the impacts are indirect but commercially important. El Niño can influence the North Atlantic jet stream and winter circulation patterns, potentially contributing to milder winters in parts of Northern and Central Europe, wetter conditions in Western Europe, and higher drought or heat risks in Southern Europe. This matters for hydropower availability, river transport, crop yields, energy demand, insurance losses, and infrastructure resilience. Even where attribution is uncertain, the risk profile for Europe is clear: more volatile weather, higher planning uncertainty, and increased exposure to compound events.
The business impact is likely to appear first through prices and supply chains. El Niño can reduce agricultural output in climate-sensitive producing regions, affecting commodities such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, rice, wheat, palm oil and vegetable oils. Drought can lower river levels and disrupt inland shipping, while floods and storms can damage ports, roads, warehouses and production sites. For European companies, this may translate into higher input costs, delayed deliveries, supplier instability, and renewed inflation pressure in food, energy, logistics and insurance.
Companies should therefore treat the 2026 El Niño risk as a near-term physical climate risk, not only as a weather story. Procurement teams should identify climate-exposed suppliers and commodities; finance teams should test price sensitivity; and sustainability teams should integrate the risk into CSRD, ESRS and IFRS S2 climate-risk assessments. The priority is not prediction accuracy, but preparedness: diversified sourcing, buffer stocks for critical inputs, supplier risk mapping, water-risk assessment, and updated business continuity plans.
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https://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-likelihood-increases-of-el-nino