Two UN agencies issued a powerful appeal on Wednesday for immediate assistance to help communities already being impacted by the strongest El Niño weather pattern on record.

"The current El Niño event could be unprecedented in strength - literally, off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades - and will peak towards the end of 2026, but its impacts will be felt long after that," said Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

According to the latest Global Seasonal Climate Update from WMO, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific - the epicentre of the extreme El Niño weather phenomenon - may rise to 3.8°C above average between November 2026 and January 2027.

While a Pacific Ocean surface temperature anomaly of 0.5°C above normal is enough to trigger an El Niño alert by WMO, Ms. Saulo highlighted concerns that the impact of an El Niño fuelled by a 3.8°C gap has no precedent.

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Simply unprecedented

Previous El Niños linked to anomalies of 3°C have brought "very substantive impacts across the world", but "we are beyond that limit, out of our records, out of our statistics of what we can expect", the agency chief stressed.

"We are already witnessing extreme weather events and expect this to multiply and cascade as El Niño intensifies," Ms. Saulo noted.

"But, a powerful El Niño does not have to be a recipe for humanitarian disaster. We have the science forecasts, the early warnings to save lives and protect livelihoods."

Echoing Ms. Saulo's appeal for prevention efforts to boost resilience among the world's most vulnerable communities, the UN's emergency relief chief, Tom Fletcher, described the new El Niño 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".

Funding to avert disaster

The next two weeks will be critical to averting a worsening humanitarian crisis linked to El Niño, Mr. Fletcher said, adding that Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya urgently need funding and emergency supplies in place before heavy rains arrive.

In southern Africa, the priority is to deliver seeds and safeguard livestock, while Central America requires immediate support to protect livelihoods.

Across Asia and the Pacific, countries must brace for a range of climate shocks, including 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," Mr. Fletcher warned.

Some 50 million people could face increased hunger because of the weather phenomenon, he stressed, before citing an African Development Bank estimate that it will cost African countries between $10 and $20 billion "and drive down GDP by between one and two per cent".

UN cash injection

To support resilience efforts, the UN's top aid official announced that he has released more than $50 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to help 11 countries on the front line, including Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.

The long-term impact "will be felt for months and potentially years to come", Mr. Fletcher continued, citing the additional strains placed on the humanitarian system by the global supply chain crunch in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea, respectively linked to war between Iran and the United States and the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

How is the UN helping the world brace for El Niño?

With a potentially devastating El Niño approaching, UN agencies are helping countries build disaster risk reduction into shelter and preparedness from the start, rather than reacting after disaster strikes. Here are some examples:

© UNDP Flood control barriers are an adaptation measure designed to manage alluvial flows in Antofagasta, in northern Chile. Chile: Shifting rainfall patterns have brought deadly floods to several regions. In northern Antofagasta, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) helped build massive barriers to hold back torrents of mud and debris.

Madagascar: Facing recurring cyclones, the national shelter cluster is developing a strategy that includes a five-year humanitarian action plan, with pilot projects running since early 2025 in the Atsimo Andrefana and Androy regions.

Nigeria: Despite aid cuts, the UN Disaster Risk Reduction office (UNDRR) and the Global Shelter Cluster brought government, humanitarian and environmental partners together in June 2025 to start work on a roadmap for safer shelter in areas hit by conflict and climate shocks.

Yemen: More than four million people are displaced, many of them on land prone to flooding, and flash floods hit over 100,000 households in 2024 alone. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR), UNDRR and partners have backed community-led defences, including a 2.5km flood diversion channel in the Al-Hazm district.