Super El Niño could add HUNDREDS to your grocery bill, scientists warn

A Super El Niño is on its way – and it could add hundreds to your grocery bill, experts have warned.

Earlier this week, scientists set the chance of the climate event taking place this summer at 80 per cent, predicting it will bring extreme heat ‘nearly everywhere’.

Now, experts say it could cause the price of common shopping basket items to soar in Britain.

‘We import two–fifths of our food from overseas,’ Gareth Redmond–King, international lead at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said.

‘Extreme conditions that are driven by climate change, turbocharged by El Niño, are a threat to crops we can’t grow here.

‘Things like bananas, rice, tea, coffee and lots of fresh fruit.’

Food prices in the UK are already on track to be 50 per cent higher by November than they were five years ago, he added.

It comes as campaigners warned the weekly shop will keep getting more unpredictable – and more unaffordable – for millions of households.

A Super El Niño is on its way, and is almost certain to arrive this summer. That’s according to scientists from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), who warn there’s now an 80 per cent likelihood of an El Niño event during June–August 2026, and a 90 per cent chance this will continue until at least November

According to World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) forecasts, an El Niño event this year is likely to take place between June and August.

The probability it will continue until at least November is around 90 per cent, the scientists also found.

The UN said countries should treat the potential event as ‘an urgent climate warning’ as the world already faces devastating impacts from increasingly severe weather and global warming.

While each El Niño varies, the event typically brings increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the southern United States, parts of the Horn of Africa and central Asia.

In contrast, there will be drier conditions over Central America, northern South America, the Caribbean, Australia, Indonesia and parts of southern Asia.

Scientists say there’s a strong chance 2026 will be the hottest year ever recorded – potentially beating the record set in 2024, when global warming exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above the pre–industrial average for the first time.

‘With global food supplies already under heavy strain from climate change and strangled off fertiliser supply flows in the Strait of Hormuz, confirmation of El Niño is bad news,’ Mr Redmond–King said.

‘It will turbocharge climate change by adding more heat to natural systems, further disrupting weather, and intensifying already dangerous extremes in many parts of the world.’

The world is on track for ‘extraordinary extreme weather’ later this year, scientists have warned, as global ocean temperatures indicate a record–breaking heat is likely  

During the El Niño part of the cycle, warm waters that build up in the Pacific spread out and raise the Earth’s average surface temperature. This heat ends up escaping into the atmosphere, raising our planet’s temperature for months

Last year, the ECIU warned that alternating periods of drought, extreme heat and heavy rainfall are wreaking havoc for farmers in the UK and around the globe.

According to their calculations, the prices for butter, beef, milk, coffee and chocolate prices soared by a whopping 15.6 per cent over 12 months.

Previous research has shown that extreme weather added £360 to the average Brit’s bill between 2022 and 2023 — suggesting we could be in for a similar increase of several hundred pounds.

Meanwhile, scientists have also raised concerns that an imminent Super El Niño could trigger global famine.

Benjamin Selwyn, Professor of International Relations and Development at the University of Sussex, said extreme heat and drought could damage harvests and worsen global food insecurity this summer.

‘El Niño alters rainfall, shifts jet streams and raises global temperatures,’ he wrote on The Conversation. ‘Human‑induced global heating intensifies these dangers.

‘A study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization shows that rising heat could make farm work unsafe for much of the year across South Asia, sub‑Saharan Africa and parts of the Americas.

‘Crop yields have dropped sharply above 30°C, while heat stress reduces livestock productivity and survival.’

Scientists say there is an extremely high, 86 per cent, chance that one year between now and 2030 will smash the temperature record last set in 2024

While some uncertainty remains about the El Niño event’s peak strength and timing, the forecast models suggest it will be at least moderate and possibly strong.

It comes after the last El Niño event contributed to soaring temperatures that saw 2024 become the warmest year on record.

This week, UN Secretary–General António Guterres said: ‘The science is clear: El Niño is arriving on our doorstep in the coming months with 90 per cent certainty.

‘The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is. El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world.

‘Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed.’