By Rotimy Djossaya
In just five days in early October 2026, Bardheere town in Somalia’s Gedo region received 93 millimeters of rain, double what it received in the whole of October 2025. In Mombasa, Kenya, a single overnight downpour caused massive flooding and destruction. Bunda in Tanzania and Kampala in Uganda have faced the same sudden heavy rain in a short span of time. Extreme rainfall is now commonplace across East Africa, and a very strong El Niño is still on its way.
For months, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that El Niño is strengthening and could reach very strong intensity, with significant implications for regional weather patterns. We all know El Niño is coming. Are we prepared for its impact?
The 2023 El Niño led to massive flooding and destruction across the region, with UNOCHA estimating that 705 people died and more than 2 million were displaced. Meteorologists and climatologists have indicated that 2023 may be only a fraction of the El Niño now expected across the region, which is forecast to begin in November and peak in February 2027.
A tale of two opposing weather patterns
East Africa has been swinging between extremes. Since October 2025, below-average rainfall has led to poor harvests and a lack of adequate pasture for livestock. In Kenya, the maize harvest declined by over 36%, and limited pasture caused an acute milk shortage. In Uganda’s Karamoja region, between 50% and 70% of food crops were destroyed by poor rainfall. In Ethiopia, the main harvest season, known as Meher, could be up to 30% below average after the poorest rains on record, with little to no harvest in many parts of Tigray because of the ongoing conflict.
Risk to communities
Millions of people across the region depend on subsistence agriculture for survival, and weather that swings between drought and flood is dismantling their livelihoods. This El Niño comes at the worst possible time. Many families were already struggling with hunger and conflict, and back-to-back droughts and floods have given them no time to recover.
Predicting hunger before it happens
In Kenya, Action Against Hunger and the University of Maryland have built a forecasting tool called MERIAM (Modeling Early Risk Indicators to Anticipate Malnutrition). It combines information on health, nutrition, weather, harvests and conflict to predict, up to six months ahead, how many children in each community are likely to become malnourished, and how severely.
Yet the forecast itself is not a breakthrough. Predicting hunger is only useful if it prevents hunger. The real breakthrough is stopping the prediction from coming true.
Some governments are moving. Kenya has written its national disaster agency into law, given it a budget and brought in the private sector to help. That is the shift every country in the region needs to make: from reacting to disasters after they happen to preparing before they arrive, and making sure the money reaches local communities, not just capital cities.
International donors need to change too. Acting early costs three to seven times less than responding after the damage is done, yet funding too often arrives only once a disaster is on the news, and by then lives are already being lost. In Ethiopia and Somalia, we have started using flexible emergency funds that local groups can draw on as soon as the forecasts show trouble coming. That approach needs to grow.
So I have three asks.
First, invest in forecasts that reach the people who need them in time. Today our tool covers just two counties in Kenya. Imagine if it covers every county, and every country at risk.
Second, help communities make their own plans, working with local officials and aid groups, so warnings turn into action on the ground.
Third, set aside flexible money in advance, so families can prepare, clinics can stock up, and people in flood zones can move somewhere safe where they can live with dignity.
The forecasts are clear and the first heavy rains have already fallen. Every week of delay costs lives and money. East Africa knows El Niño is coming. The question is whether we act now or wait for the headlines to force us to.
The writer is the Chief Impact Officer at Action Against Hunger. [email protected]
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