NOAA has declared that El Nino formed in the tropical Pacific and is expected to strengthen. Its forecast assigned a 63 percent chance to sea-surface temperatures exceeding 2C above normal later in 2026, a threshold the agency calls very strong. That is a probability about ocean temperature. It is not a 63 percent chance that a particular crop fails or a grocery bill rises by a stated amount. [2]

The distinction extends the paper's July 10 account of several inflation pressures without assigned causal shares. The Federal Reserve could identify tariffs, war-related energy costs and AI construction demand without announcing what each would contribute or how rates would respond. El Nino adds another input, not a settled price path.

The Guardian reports economists warning that a strong 2026-27 event could damage exposed harvests and keep pressure on food prices into 2028. The long horizon reflects a chain of seasons, crops, transport and retail decisions, not a storm arriving at every checkout at once. [1]

The forecast begins in the ocean

El Nino develops when wind and ocean changes allow warmer water to spread across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. NOAA's June release says the event has formed and should strengthen. The agency's post on X accurately compresses that primary finding. It does not mention food prices. [2]

Intensity matters because a larger ocean-temperature departure can alter atmospheric circulation and increase the risk of consequential weather. Yet even a very strong event does not impose one pattern everywhere. El Nino has historically been associated with different combinations of drought, heavy rain and heat across regions. The outcome depends on location, crop and timing.

That geography is the first break in any simple inflation forecast. A rainfall shift can damage one harvest while benefiting another. The same crop can respond differently across continents. Planting and harvesting calendars determine whether a dry or wet period arrives at a sensitive stage. The European Central Bank's historical review emphasizes that these effects vary by crop type, growing season, region and event. [3]

The event's existence is therefore a necessary fact for the food forecast, not sufficient proof of it. NOAA observes and forecasts the climate system. Farmers, crop agencies and markets will supply later records about rainfall, acreage, yield, disease and substitution. Those records do not yet exist for harvests that lie ahead.

A crop loss is not a food index

The next link runs from weather to production. Drought can reduce yields. Flooding can destroy plants or delay fieldwork. Heat and moisture can change disease pressure. But the effect must be measured crop by crop and region by region before it becomes a global harvest result.

Substitution complicates the account. Farmers can change planting decisions, buyers can switch ingredients and countries can draw inventories or alter trade. A poor corn harvest may affect soybean demand; a regional loss may be offset elsewhere. The ECB cautions that directly extrapolating from crop effects to price effects would be misleading because yields are only one influence on global commodity prices. [3]

The institution's 2023 analysis offers a useful historical bound. It estimated that a one-degree transition from a normal to a strong El Nino could lift global food commodity prices for as long as two years, with a peak increase of up to 9 percent after 16 months. The model controlled for fertilizer and oil prices and global industrial activity, and it found different responses among soybeans, corn, rice, wheat, coffee and cocoa. [3]

That estimate is not a forecast for the current event. It was built on earlier cycles, with uncertainty intervals and a particular definition of intensity. It concerns global food commodities, not a household's basket. Its value is methodological: it shows that effects can be delayed, uneven and persistent even after controlling for other major inputs.

War and weather can share a bill

The Guardian's analysts place El Nino beside an existing shock. The Iran war has already raised concern about energy, fertilizer and shipping costs. Weather can affect how much food is produced; conflict can affect how expensive it is to grow, process and move. The two can arrive in the same retail system without contributing equal or easily separable shares. [1]

Fuel powers machinery and transport. Natural gas and other energy inputs matter for fertilizer. Shipping routes and insurance affect imported food and farm supplies. Currency, tariffs and domestic policy alter how world prices reach a country. A weather event can tighten one commodity while a war raises the cost of moving many of them.

That overlap makes dramatic attribution tempting. If food prices rise, one camp can blame climate and another can blame war. The correct account will require dates and quantities: measured weather, crop reports, commodity contracts, freight and fertilizer costs, exchange rates and retail pass-through. A list of plausible pressures is not a decomposition.

The July 10 Fed report made the same point from the policy side. Institutions can watch several inflation pressures together before they know each share. Adding El Nino should widen the monitoring table, not produce a confident decimal for the next grocery receipt.

Commodity prices stop before the shelf

Even a measured increase in a global commodity does not reach every consumer intact. Raw ingredients are one part of a retail product. Processing, packaging, labor, rent, transport, competition, contracts and taxes all shape the final price. Retailers can delay, absorb or amplify changes. Governments can alter tariffs, subsidies or reserves.

The ECB explicitly distinguishes global food commodity prices from euro-area consumer food prices, where effects are expected to be smaller. It notes that domestic policy and the weight of food in an inflation index affect the result. [3] The Guardian likewise says mitigation and retail pricing help determine what appears on shelves. [1]

For households, the relevant questions are local. Which staples are exposed? How much of the ingredient is imported? When do contracts reset? What share of income already goes to food? A percentage movement in a global index can be severe for a low-income household and barely visible in a product whose commodity input is small.

The 2028 date should be read in that sequence. Analysts are not saying every bill remains elevated by the same amount until a deadline. They are warning that planting cycles, harvest losses, transport effects and price pass-through can take years to be fully felt. [1] Persistence is a claim about lags and repeated seasons, not a guarantee about a single monthly inflation print.

Watch the stages, not the label

The term "super El Nino" can collapse the chain before evidence arrives. NOAA's operational language is more useful: the event formed, it is expected to strengthen and a very strong temperature threshold carries a stated probability. [2] Each later stage needs its own receipt.

Weather agencies should update intensity and regional outlooks. Crop agencies should publish acreage, condition and yield data. Commodity markets will show prices and uncertainty, while shipping and fertilizer records expose other inputs. Statistical agencies will record retail food inflation. Central banks may revise forecasts or policy, but a forecast revision is not a rate decision.

The reader does not need false reassurance. A strong El Nino can be a serious food-security risk, especially where households spend more of their income on staples and have fewer buffers. The discipline is not to minimize that risk. It is to prevent a real climate probability from becoming an imaginary certainty at the checkout.

NOAA has supplied the first link. Economists have described a plausible path through harvests and markets into 2028. The space between them is where the next two years of evidence will accumulate. Until then, formation is a warning to measure the chain, not permission to skip it.

-- DARA OSEI, London