In thermal images mapping the surface temperatures of the Pacific Ocean, a thick red gash stretches, like a knife wound, out from the western coast of equatorial South America, indicating warmer than normal seas. This is El Niño, a naturally occurring climate phenomenon known to trigger weather anomalies across the globe, and its onset has been confirmed for 2026. The secretary of the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Celeste Saulo, emphasized the seriousness of the situation and stressed the likelihood of regions around the world experiencing abnormal and extreme weather as a result. “In some regions it is likely we will see heavy rainfall and floods, in others drought conditions, in others increased or reduced extreme heat,” she said. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a stark warning, affirming that “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world.” Scientists have said there is no evidence that climate change is intensifying or increasing the frequency of El Niño events. However, when coupled with higher average sea temperatures, themselves fuelled by global warming, it is likely the impacts of El Niño on global weather patterns will be amplified. The double whammy of climate change and the last El Niño event in 2023-2024 is considered to be what made 2024 the hottest year on record. At the moment, subsurface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean are 6C warmer than average, fuelling concerns that the incoming El Niño could “feed on this extra heat and devastate vulnerable and unprepared communities worldwide,” according to the UN. While there is some uncertainty about this El Niño’s projected peak strength, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), a US government environment monitoring agency, this month predicted an 81 percent chance of sea surface temperatures in the monitored region of the Pacific to exceed 2C, above the normal average for the period of October to December this year. A 2C increase is the NOAA’s threshold to categorize an El Niño event as “very strong.” A recent WMO press release also stated that forecast models are showing “remarkable agreement,” and are allowing “high confidence” in the projection that this El Niño will both develop into a strong event between now and next September, and that it will continue to strengthen throughout the autumn. In Egypt, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbuly said, during a press conference on June 3, that temperatures are expected to reach “exceptional” levels this summer, and cited El Niño’s onset as a likely driver of the anticipated hotter weather in the country. He went on to stress the need for intensifying coordination between the central bank and the finance, petroleum and electricity ministries, with the aim of ensuring that the country’s summertime energy needs will be met. Courtesy: Ahram Online However, the UN’s warnings hint that challenges exceeding the woes of energy availability might be just around the corner. The question is therefore raised as to what challenges the not so proverbial storm of a “very strong” El Niño is likely to pose for Egypt, and what can and should be done to help meet them. Heatwaves El Niño events occur every two to seven years and typically last nine to 12 months, with conditions usually forming between March and June and peaking between November and February. Impacts on global temperatures are often most significant in the second year after an El Niño event develops. “Even with the uncertainty that always comes with seasonal forecasts, the rest of this year is unlikely to be easy,” environmental researcher Ahmed al-Adawy tells Mada Masr, explaining that even though past El Niño events have been known to reach their peak toward the end of the year of their onset, this one has already accumulated a lot of strength early on in its cycle, meaning that we are likely to see impacts earlier than we otherwise might have. However, Adawy says, “Not everything that happens this year should be attributed to El Niño,” adding that a “typical El Niño state changes the probabilities of certain weather patterns, but it does not control every event. In other words, El Niño can push the climate system in a particular direction, but regional and local conditions determine how that influence is expressed.” Adawy explains that in the context of rising global temperature averages driven by climate change, extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods have become significantly more frequent around the world. And in terms of Egypt, according to Adawy, the most significant El Niño-linked challenge the country is likely to face in the coming months is heatwaves. As heatwaves occur, high temperatures extend through the night. “Nighttime temperatures should not be neglected. When nights remain very warm, the body, homes and workplaces do not have enough time to release the heat accumulated during the day,” Adawy adds. Adawy speaks to how the severity of the impacts of heatwaves on people varies according to geography, overall health and living and working conditions, especially in terms of access to water and cooling. Among the most vulnerable groups are elderly people, infants and children, pregnant women, people with kidney conditions and people whose work exposes them to dangerous heat, either outdoors, like in the case of agricultural and construction workers, or in inadequately ventilated indoor settings. People who live alone are also at higher risk. Meanwhile, heatwaves are also a big challenge for agriculture and food production, especially in the summer when they are more extreme, rural sociologist Saker al-Nour tells Mada Masr. Nour explains that a major way in which crops are affected is by how heat stress increases the evaporation of irrigation water, leading to a need for more frequent irrigation, which increases stress on water systems. He adds that in Egypt, the most vulnerable crops are vegetables, with tree crops being more resilient, but that this does not mean that they are unaffected. The effects of average temperature increases on agriculture are not straightforward and can be counterintuitive; while their general and long term net effect is negative, they can also have positive impacts, Nour says. For instance, average temperature increases can speed up and sometimes even increase the yields of certain crops, especially around winter time. Conversely, they can also harm other winter crops that need extended periods of reduced heat. Nour explains that some farmers have developed strategies for coping with extreme heat, such as irrigating at night to avoid excess evaporation, covering their crops with fabric to protect them from direct sunlight and planting more drought resistant crops like sorghum. However, these are anecdotal accounts, Nour adds, pointing to a lack of research on understanding the perspectives of different social groups on climate issues in Egypt, such as farmers. According to him, already limited academic resources go toward more technical hard sciences research, such as environmental engineering, at the expense of more social science-based research on farmers’ perspectives. Sunset over the Nile in Maadi, Cairo, October 2025. Photo by Zakaria Fahmy Water supply Aside from heatwaves and their accompanying challenges, another El Niño-linked phenomenon that is important for Egypt concerns the Nile and water supply. Adawy says that El Niño is commonly associated with reductions in rainfall over the Blue Nile basin in Ethiopia, which can have serious effects on the Nile’s flow levels in Egypt. “Studies link El Niño to drier conditions in the Blue Nile. We are expecting that rain […] will be lower than average. It could reach a state of drought,” Adawy tells Mada Masr. Of the Nile water reaching the Aswan High Dam, around 85 percent comes from the Blue Nile, with only about 15 percent from the White Nile. While the prospect of heatwaves joining forces with a water supply crisis caused by a reduction in the Nile’s flow levels, Egypt’s main water source, can be a cause of concern, Adawy assures that even if the expected dry conditions in the Blue Nile Basin last into next year, there shouldn’t be any significant water supply problems. This, he explains, is because of the very large reserves currently available upstream of the Aswan High Dam and of other upstream dams in Ethiopia and Sudan, owing to historically high Nile flows in the past few years. Adawy elaborates that while studies say there is a risk of droughts occurring, there is also a possibility of them not happening at all. “At present, below-normal rainfall is favoured across important parts of the Ethiopian Highlands and Upper Blue Nile Basin, while some local areas keep a near-normal signal. This increases the risk of reduced Blue Nile Basin runoff, but it does not mean that drought is guaranteed,” Adawy tells Mada Masr. Speaking on the potentiality of low Nile floods this year, Sameh Abdel Rahman, vice president of the Nile Water Division of the Water Resources and Irrigation Ministry, said on Tuesday that it is too early to accurately judge the Nile’s flood levels this season, and clarified that accurate forecasting is currently being hampered by disagreements between different forecasting models, with some predicting a higher likelihood of drought, and others a higher likelihood of above normal rainfall. He added that under no circumstances will Egypt face a water crisis in the coming months, highlighting how, in the past, flood seasons have early on in their development shown signs of being weak before turning out much stronger than anticipated. When asked if it is possible for heat stress this year to be such that demand might outweigh the very large available reserves, Adawy responds that “based on the buffering role of the Aswan High Dam, an immediate nationwide shortage is not likely to result from only one poor rainy season,” explaining that water demand is a longer term challenge. Secondary effects On top of these direct environmental threats posed by El Niño is the potential for Egypt to be hit by secondary economic shocks triggered by extreme weather events in other parts of the globe, Nour says. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, meaning that the country will feel any shocks to wheat crops around the world, he says. However, economic impacts, like direct environmental impacts, are myriad and often contrary to what one might expect. Nour explains that while the general net effect of temperature increases is negative, they can also have shorter term, positive effects in some countries. For instance, recent heatwaves in Europe have severely impacted agricultural output in the south of Spain, a region from which originates most of Europe’s vegetables. This means that Egyptian vegetable exporters are likely to benefit from unmet European demand, Nour says. He adds, however, that this would deepen the food imbalance already caused by heatwave damage to Egyptian crops by further reducing the amount of domestically produced food available for sale on the domestic market. Researchers have argued that the catastrophic El Niño-linked famines of the 1870s, in which more than 50 million people died, were also, to a large degree, the result of economic shocks compounded by disastrous colonial policies in the regions where they occurred. For instance, in his book Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (Verso, 2000), Mike Davis explained how British colonial authorities in 1870s India allowed vast grain exports to England to continue in the midst of extreme famine. Secondary impacts of El Niño should be expected around the world, but it is unlikely we will see a crisis as severe as that of the 1870s, in part because the economic and political conditions which amplified it do not exist today. Now what? Adawy says that the first priority in Egypt must be to improve the climate resilience of the most vulnerable social groups and climate sensitive sectors like agriculture. “Heat-protection rules should not depend only on a general temperature announcement. They should consider humidity, direct sunlight, physical workload, ventilation and how long a person remains exposed. Employers should be required to provide safe drinking water, shaded or cooled rest areas, regular rest breaks and first-aid procedures. Heavy work should be shifted away from the hottest hours when conditions become dangerous. Workers should also be protected from losing their wages when work has to be reduced or suspended for safety reasons,” he says. The second priority, according to Adawy, is to move on from the question of awareness raising toward more active assistance. “It is no longer enough to visit a farmer and say that the crop may be affected by heat or water stress. Many farmers have already experienced repeated losses. They need practical assistance that allows them to act on the warning,” he says. Adawy also raises the issue of justice in access to critical goods, especially water, emphasising the need to ensure that poorer communities, that already consume much less water than richer ones, have their consumption needs met. “The headline shouldn’t always be rationing,” he says, “Rationing will take place among some sections [of society], and we could also support weaker groups that aren’t able to access sufficient amounts of home use water.” A low-income household with intermittent water access cannot be treated in the same way as a household or business using large volumes for non-essential purposes,” Adawy adds, and further explains that the same goes for other resources like electricity. Echoing Nour’s point about lack of research, Adawy points to a lack of funded research on the secondary effects of extreme weather events and climate anomalies,which would help fill gaps in assessing the varying levels of vulnerability of different sections of society in Egypt, identifying the weaker communities as well as how they will be affected. “We need to know how the same heatwave affects a farm worker, an older person living alone or a child in a poorly ventilated classroom. We also need better evidence on labour productivity, food prices, household electricity costs, water interruptions and heat-related illness,” Adawy says. In their statements, both Saulo and Guterres stressed how careful forecasting and early warning systems are vital to help respond to and mitigate the impact of extreme weather events. “El Niño does not have to be a recipe for disaster. Forecasts […] are a call to action. With reliable and accurate forecasts and effective early warnings, we can anticipate impacts, take steps to reduce risks and act before hazards become crises”, Saulo said. Adawy says that forecasting organizations in Egypt have started both linking with and using data shared by international initiatives, such as WMO, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and Copernicus, the European Union’s main environment monitoring programme, to more accurately model Egypt’s weather. The challenge, he explains, is that for a forecast to come early and be accurate, the forecasting system used has to be accurate for the region one is covering. “A global forecast does not automatically become a useful local warning,” Adawy says. “Local accuracy depends on the density and quality of weather stations, radar and satellite observations, the model resolution, regional calibration and continuous verification. European countries generally have denser observation networks, more extensive radar coverage and longer experience with local impact-based warning systems. Egypt and other North African countries therefore need to strengthen their local observations and their ability to translate global data, and their own developed models, into locally tested warnings.” He says that in the meantime, Egypt’s meteorological authority should release more detailed information, going beyond a single national temperature figure, which it should also continuously update.The post El-Niño: Pouring fuel on the fire of a warming world first appeared on Mada Masr.
