Food Prices Set To Rise Again: Weather Experts Predict El Niño Comparable to the Destructive 1997-1998 El Niño

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The 1997-1998 El Niño is estimated to have caused over 23,000 deaths worldwide (source). With forecasters saying that the signs point to an 80% chance of a strong El Niño forming towards the end of this year, what impacts can be expected?

While some areas such as the West Coast of the United States could get a massive amount of rain (very welcome after record breaking droughts), other areas that rely on rain for agriculture will be left bone dry. A strong El Niño also increases fears that production of many key agricultural commodities in Asia and Australia will suffer.

Extreme El Niño events develop differently from standard El Niños, which first appear in the western pacific. The extreme events occur when sea surface temperatures exceeding 82°F develop in the normally cold and dry eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. This different location for the origin of the temperature increase causes massive changes in global rainfall patterns which result in floods and torrential rain in some places and devastating droughts and wildfires in others.



If El Niño does arrive you can expect food prices to riser even faster than they are at present. Large swathes of agricultural land, land that currently supplies everything from fruit and vegetables to grains and cattle, will suffer from the massive weather variations that El Niño brings.

Drought and floods will take their toll in areas that are often not well equipped to deal with weather that is the opposite of what they usually experience. As the months roll on, the predictions will become more precise, but the 80% certainty stated by many forecasters and scientists indicates that our current weather patterns may well be about to change.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple


Contributed by Chris Carrington of The Daily Sheeple.


  • Joseph Lizak

    I’m ready for El Nino ….bring it on.

  • Stan

    Great fishing in Southern California…….