Climate Security — 2026-07-14

Record El Nino With 81 Percent Probability of Historic Intensity Threatens Floods Across East Africa and Asia

BLUFA likely historic-intensity El Niño peaking between October and December will compound displacement and aid shortfalls across East Africa and South Asia, with food-security effects extending into 2027.

The US Climate Prediction Center said on July 9 that El Niño is strengthening rapidly, with an 81 percent chance of becoming one of the most powerful events since 1950 and a peak likely between October and December 1. The International Rescue Committee named Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan as most at risk, citing 4.8 million Somalis in need of aid and Kenya's 80-82 percent forecast that the pattern persists through the year, prompting Nairobi to activate its national disaster plan 12. In Bangladesh, at least 15 Rohingya refugees have been killed and more than 10,000 displaced by landslides and flooding in the Cox's Bazar camps since early July 12. Pakistan faces below-average rainfall alongside a glacier-melt flood risk in its northern mountains 12.

Analysis
El Niño is likely to peak between October and December at one of the strongest intensities since 1950, driving flooding, disease and food-security shocks across Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where drought, displacement and shrinking aid budgets have already eroded capacity to absorb the rainfall reversal. Moderate confidence reflects convergence between US and Kenyan forecasts, though both track the same ocean-temperature signal rather than independent indicators; reporting rests on a single IRC release amplified rather than independently verified by outside sources. World Bank projections of a fifth-to-half rice-yield loss across the hardest-hit regions could extend the shock into regional food markets through 2027. The urgency may also serve the IRC's push to unlock anticipatory-action funding before donor attention shifts to the Iran conflict. Donors and governments acting now, ahead of the July 15 Somalia rainfall update, spend far less on pre-positioning cash, water access and early warning than on post-flood response later.

2 sources

Record El Nino threatens to unleash floods across East Africa and Asia - Al Jazeera
El Niño threatens deadly floods and disease across East Africa and Asia - International Rescue Committee