"We're about to experience probably the largest El Niño that has ever been seen," Dame Angela Eagle told The Guardian on Sept. 3. "If you’ve got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for a while before the emergency services can get to you, you’re going to be a lot better off than if you haven't."
In the U.K., El Niño typically brings wetter-than-average conditions in the fall and early, cold winters. The latest forecasts suggest the U.K. will be stormy from November to January, and parts of the U.S. could also see heavy rainfall throughout winter, so it may be sensible to store enough food to last a few days at home in case of flooding or power outages, experts told Live Science. But that effort to stock up could be complicated by another problem: El Niño could cause a surge in food prices, experts added.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this year's El Niño has reached "super" status. As of Sept. 27, sea surface temperatures in a region of the Pacific Ocean known as Niño 3.4 have risen 5.7 degrees Fahrenheit (3.15 degrees Celsius) above average. A typical El Niño increases temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region by 2.8 to 3.6 F (1 to 2 C) above average, tops.
El Niño typically brings wetter-than-normal conditions to the southern U.S. during winter. (Image credit: NOAA/Climate Prediction Center)
This year's El Niño will be the strongest that's ever been recorded, because it is piling extra heat onto unparalleled levels of human-driven global warming. Estimates show that sea surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region, located in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, could reach 7.2 F (4 C) above average by November.
Hinge said it is common advice to stock 1 gallon (4 liters) of water per person per day, ideally for a week. For food, it's good to collect a few cans per person of beans, fish, vegetables and fruit, as well as pasta, rice, oats, peanut butter and preserved milk. Additionally, people should have on hand a manual can opener and a camping stove with fuel, he said.
Impact on food prices
The main El Niño-related threat to food access in high-income countries like the U.K. and the U.S. is not extreme weather happening locally. Rather, people in these countries may be limited in what they can afford due to El Niño's impacts on agriculture in other regions, Hinge said.
Given that this year's El Niño is unprecedented there is a high risk of serious large regional shocks which could seriously impact food access
Lower crop yields in countries like India raise food prices around the world. For example, dry conditions in India triggered by the 2023 El Niño prompted a temporary restriction on exports of rice, which boosted the cost of this staple food globally. And food prices will jump again this year, adding to the increases caused by the Russia-Ukraine and Iran wars, Hinge said.
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El Niño's impact on the U.K. and other similar countries will be mostly economic, said Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading in the U.K. However, the humanitarian consequences in more vulnerable regions should remind us that climate change is making the world less safe for everyone, he said.
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