A super El Nino is forming
Forecasters expect a historic super El Nino to peak between November 2026 and January 2027, and aid agencies are already planning for the consequences. The International Rescue Committee warns the pattern could quickly worsen food security across Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, where subsistence farmers depend on a short rainy season. Conflict-disrupted shipping has also pushed up the cost of imported food, fuel and fertiliser, so households have less room to absorb a failed harvest.
Fires keep burning in Indonesia
Indonesia is fighting its most intense fire season in 11 years. President Prabowo Subianto said Malaysia will send assistance to help contain forest and land fires that have burned for weeks across Borneo and Sumatra. Much of the burning is on peatland, where fires smoulder underground and can reignite long after surface flames are out, making them expensive to fight and hard to measure by satellite. Haze has spread across parts of the region, and schools have closed in some districts.
Extreme weather keeps setting the bill
China said direct economic losses from natural disasters in August reached 36.03 billion yuan, about $5.38 billion, with Typhoon Dolphin causing most of the damage. The figures cover flooded farmland, damaged roads and destroyed housing, and they are published monthly as part of a wider effort to price climate risk. In the United States, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully cancelled a $7 billion grant programme aimed at expanding solar energy in low-income communities, a decision that keeps money flowing to projects already in planning.
What to watch this winter
The El Nino signal matters most for rainfall, not temperature. If it arrives as forecast, Central America faces a dry spell during the period when crops need water, while parts of South America risk the opposite. Humanitarian agencies say early cash transfers and seed distribution work better than emergency food aid later, but both depend on funding that is currently behind schedule.