El Niño is gaining strength across the Pacific and could rank among the most intense episodes ever recorded, according to reporting from Clarin.com. The weather pattern is expected to raise the risk of droughts, floods, water shortages, crop losses and disease outbreaks in various parts of the world over the coming months.
More than 347 million children in nearly 100 countries and territories will live between October and December in areas where unusually dry or wet conditions linked to the phenomenon are forecast, according to an analysis published by UNICEF. About 41 million of those children are in Latin America and the Caribbean, making the region one of the most exposed, behind Asia and the Pacific and on par with Eastern and Southern Africa.
"For children, El Niño is much more than a weather phenomenon. It can mean increased displacement, malnutrition, water scarcity and disease outbreaks," UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell warned, as reported by Clarin.com.
Why it matters
The numbers from UNICEF place children at the center of a climate pattern that reshapes rainfall, harvests and water access across entire regions. When El Niño shifts precipitation away from its usual patterns, the consequences reach food supplies, drinking water and public health — and the youngest populations absorb the hardest blows.
Latin America's exposure is especially significant because the region already carries a heavy share of the global burden. Only Asia and the Pacific has more children living in areas expected to face unusual conditions, while Eastern and Southern Africa sits at a comparable level to Latin America and the Caribbean.
Argentina watches the rains build
In Argentina, attention is focused on when heavy rainfall will peak and how the climate will shift in the months ahead, according to Clarin.com's live coverage. The outlet reported that the Entidad Binacional Yacyretá issued a warning about rising water levels linked to El Niño.
The picture is not uniform across the region. In Formosa, local reporting carried by Clarin.com stressed that "El Niño is not a storm" — a reminder that the phenomenon describes a broad shift in climate patterns rather than a single weather event. The distinction matters for how communities prepare: the risks accumulate gradually through wetter or drier seasons rather than arriving all at once.
Climatologist Juan Minetti has pointed to 22 variables that influence the "Niño phenomenon" and rainfall, according to Agrositio. Meteored Argentina, meanwhile, reported on what the national meteorological service anticipates for rainfall during the 2026/27 growing season. Página|12 covered the wider regional consequences: humidity, rains and river rises.
Storms add to the strain
The El Niño coverage unfolded alongside active storm systems in the Americas. Hurricane Rachel made landfall in Mexico's Baja California state early Sunday and then moved toward the United States, Mexico's national meteorological service reported. Rachel arrived with maximum sustained winds of 95 kilometers per hour and gusts of 110, later weakening to sustained winds of 85 km/h and gusts of 100 as it advanced north at 41 km/h.
Despite the weakening, the service forecast heavy rainfall of 25 to 50 millimeters in Baja California, wind gusts of up to 100 km/h and waves reaching 6 meters. The storm flooded parts of Baja California, and its post-tropical swell struck the Oceanside boardwalk, while coastal walkways in Alamitos were submerged and damaged and waves hit waterfront homes in Long Beach.
Separately, Hurricane Simón adjusted its track slightly on Sunday. Mexico's meteorological service director, Fabián Vázquez, said the cyclone's center would arrive about six hours later than first expected, passing roughly 15 kilometers off the coast of Jalisco state and running parallel to it rather than necessarily striking the mainland. Even so, Vázquez said all of the storm's cloud bands would still affect coastal communities, with severe wind effects, waves up to nine meters and extraordinary rainfall. Hurricane-hunter aircraft data gathered overnight prompted the revised forecast, which had earlier pointed to a Category 4 impact around midday.
In the eastern United States, heavy rain brought flood risk to the central Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic as the remnants of Hurricane Isaias moved north after crossing Florida and Alabama. The National Weather Service warned of possible flooding across the region, along with a chance of tornadoes in parts of Virginia and North Carolina and dangerous surf and rip currents along the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic coasts.
Philippe Papin, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said the heavy rain was expected to continue from the central Appalachians toward the Mid-Atlantic through Sunday, with possible flash flooding in urban areas and residual wind gusts as the system climbed the spine of the Appalachian mountains.
Conservation enters the conversation
In Peru, local authorities emphasized the need to soften El Niño's effects in order to protect natural ecosystems and the country's bird diversity. Viviana Panizo, president of the Municipal Authority of the Pantanos de Villa (Prohvilla), said everyone around the world must conserve and mitigate dangers in order to keep protecting these spaces.
She spoke during the global October Big Day 2026, an event in which citizens and specialists take part in spotting and recording bird species. Panizo said the edition aimed to raise public awareness, build a historical record of sightings and train participants to use digital tools such as the eBird platform to log wildlife in the wetlands.
What to watch
Forecasts point to El Niño continuing to build through the final months of the year, with UNICEF's analysis covering October through December as the window of highest concern. The coming weeks will show whether the rainfall peaks anticipated in Argentina and the river rises flagged by Yacyretá materialize as projected — and whether the storm systems still moving across the Americas compound the strain on the communities already bracing for a stronger El Niño.
