NAIROBI — The Kenya Meteorological Department has issued an El Niño alert, warning of dry conditions through much of mid-2026 followed by an elevated flood risk later in the year, as the country continues to grapple with the effects of an ongoing drought.
Forecasters put the likelihood of El Niño conditions during June-August 2026 at 80-82%, with the probability of it persisting through the end of the year rising to 90-96%, according to Kenyans.co.ke. Much of August and September is expected to remain dry, with only scattered rainfall forecast in October and temperatures running warmer than average across the country.
The dry conditions come after Kenya’s Cabinet approved the release of 4.1 billion shillings to scale up drought relief interventions, with an estimated 3.3 million people facing acute food shortages, a figure projected to rise to 3.6 million by mid-2026, according to allAfrica.
The drought has driven rising malnutrition, affecting more than 810,000 children and 104,000 pregnant and lactating women, according to the same government data cited by allAfrica.
Meteorologists say the evolving El Niño is being reinforced by unusually warm global ocean temperatures and an expected positive Indian Ocean Dipole, a combination that raises the likelihood of both floods and droughts in different parts of the country as the year progresses.
