Snips

Each “El Niño” is different.

Some are quite weak, and some are quite strong.

Unfortunately, scientists are telling us that the “El Niño” that is coming in the middle of this year will be immensely powerful…

Multiple forecast systems, spanning the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia, project that an El Niño event will emerge by mid-2026. Some model runs go further, tracking into territory that would rival or exceed the most powerful El Niño episodes ever recorded. The last time the Pacific warmed this aggressively was during 1877 and 1878, when the resulting droughts and harvest failures across India, China, and Brazil contributed to famines that killed tens of millions of people. That history, combined with an ocean already running hotter than any 19th-century baseline, has forecasters treating the current signal with unusual urgency.

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According to the Washington Post, the “Super El Niño” of 1877 and 1878 resulted in a global famine that killed over 50 million people…

The climatic shift devastated crops nearly 150 years ago, raising the question of whether a similar disruption could threaten global food security yet again. The strongest El Niño on record from 1877 to 1878 fueled conditions that led to a global famine which killed more than 50 million people across India, China, Brazil and elsewhere. That was 3 to 4 percent of the estimated global population at the time, equal to at least 250 million people if it happened today.

“It was arguably the worst environmental disaster to ever befall humanity,” researchers have written about the event.

This disaster took years to unfold. Drought began spreading across the tropics and subtropics in 1875. In the years that followed, a combination of strong climate forces in the Indian and Atlantic oceans formed alongside the record-breaking El Niño, amplifying and prolonging the drought.

That particular “Super El Niño” literally changed the course of history.

Now a similar “Super El Niño” is set to begin later this year.

A powerful “super El Niño” weather pattern is set to drive up temperatures around the world in the coming months and will probably make 2027 the hottest on record, scientists have said.

The weather pattern could bring the return of 40C heat to Britain, a temperature only before experienced in 2022, as well as an increase in the price of tropical crops, such as coffee and sugar.

Of course not every area of the world will be affected the same way.

In some parts of the globe there will be more rain than usual, while others will experience severe drought…

The practical implications are wide-ranging. During past strong El Niño events, California and the U.S. Gulf Coast experienced heavier-than-normal winter rainfall and flooding, while Australia, Indonesia, and parts of southern Africa faced prolonged drought. Atlantic hurricane activity typically decreases during El Niño years due to increased wind shear, but Pacific typhoon tracks shift eastward, threatening island nations that are normally spared. Global wheat, rice, and sugar prices have historically spiked during strong El Niño episodes as production drops in key exporting regions.

Wheat production will likely drop in 2027 here in the United States too, because warmer and drier conditions than usual are expected for America’s heartland.

And that is really bad news, because in 2026 it is being projected that U.S. farmers will grow the fewest acres of wheat since records began in 1919.

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So many of our farmers suddenly find themselves in desperate situations, and the same thing is true for many of our ranchers.

It is exceedingly difficult to feed cattle when conditions are bone dry, and at this stage the size of the U.S. cattle herd is the smallest that it has been in 75 years…

Beef prices aren’t easing anytime soon and economists warn the pressure could last for years.

That’s because the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to its smallest size in 75 years, after years of drought, rising feed costs and an aging ranching workforce forced producers to scale back.

“The biggest thing has been drought,” Eric Belasco, head of the agricultural economics department at Montana State University, told Fox News Digital.

Years of dry weather have wiped out grasslands across the West and Plains, leaving ranchers without enough feed or water to sustain their herds. Many have been forced to sell cattle early, including breeding cows needed to produce the next generation of calves, making it harder to rebuild.