Drought puts 6.9 million quintals of basic grains at risk in El Salvador

ACCOMPANYING FEATURE: GUATEMALA EL NIÑO EL JÍCARO (GUATEMALA), 09/16/2026.- Photograph dated September 2, 2026 showing Jesús Rodríguez holding corn that did not fully develop due to the drought in El Jícaro (Guatemala). Living conditions in the communities of El Jícaro are worsening due to the lack of access routes, since reaching the communities requires crossing completely dry riverbeds and stone paths where travel is only possible on horseback or in four-wheel-drive vehicles. EFE/ Alex Cruz A Super El Niño has already reached its highest category and threatens to become the most intense since records began in 1950. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed the phenomenon on Thursday. The agency set the probability that the event will remain in the strong to very strong category through the January-to-March 2027 quarter at more than 79%. The CPC's technical data confirm that thermal anomalies exceeded 4 °C and expanded toward the western equatorial Pacific. Each monitoring zone recorded figures that far exceed historical averages. ACCOMPANYING FEATURE: GUATEMALA EL NIÑO EL JÍCARO (GUATEMALA), 09/16/2026.- Photograph dated September 2, 2026 showing Jesús Rodríguez posing with corn that did not fully develop due to the drought in El Jícaro (Guatemala). Living conditions in the communities of El Jícaro are worsening due to the lack of access routes, since reaching the communities requires crossing completely dry riverbeds and stone paths where travel is only possible on horseback or in four-wheel-drive vehicles. EFE/ Alex Cruz The Niño-3.4 region, the main benchmark for classifying the phenomenon, rose to +2.5 °C. The Niño-3 sector reached +3.6 °C and the coastal Niño-1+2 area marked an extreme of +4.4 °C. NOAA maintains that the phenomenon will continue to strengthen before beginning a gradual decline in early 2027. The probability that it will surpass in magnitude all events recorded since 1950 stands at 60% for the October-to-December 2026 and November 2026-to-January 2027 quarters. Beneath the ocean's surface, the warming is also intensifying. Subsurface anomalies exceed +10 °C in the depths of the Pacific, a figure that sustains a thermocline considerably deeper than usual and reinforces westerly winds in the lower levels of the atmosphere. A farmer holds dried bean seeds and soil crumbling over a field cracked by drought in the Dry Corridor. (Illustrative image Infobae)The strengthening of the phenomenon coincided with the end of the rainy season in Salvadoran territory. The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) reported this week that the country officially entered the dry season on Monday, November 9. The environmental agency confirmed a sustained decrease in rainfall that began to manifest as of October 18. During the new season, days with less cloud cover, scarcer rains, and a greater presence of northern winds will predominate, with cool temperatures in the early morning hours. A farmer walks across land with dried corn stalks and cracked earth during a drought period in El Salvador. (Illustrative image Infobae)The MARN clarified that isolated rainfall is not ruled out if cold fronts approach the Central American region. The start of the dry season came earlier than projected just weeks before. The Environmental Subunit of the University of El Salvador (UES) had set the start of the season for November 14, in a report based on the 27 international models of Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). All of those models agree in classifying the phenomenon as "extraordinarily intense." Meteorologist Danilo Ramírez, coordinator of the UES Environmental Subunit, warned local media that the persistence of El Niño until April will make the seasonal transition difficult and anticipated an irregular onset of the 2027 winter as a direct consequence of the phenomenon. The General Directorate of Civil Protection located the critical phase of greatest impact in the so-called "second year of incidence" of the event, concentrated between January and April 2027. The country remains under a drought red alert, decreed at the end of August. The measure responds to the risk that the rainfall deficit poses to the production of approximately 6.9 million quintals of basic grains in the national harvests. The phenomenon is not a future threat: it has already devastated part of the first harvest of 2026. As reported by Focos TV, a Salvadoran channel, the Salvadoran Chamber of Small and Medium Agricultural Producers (CAMPO) reported the loss of 2,394,000 quintals of corn and 78,000 quintals of beans nationwide in that planting. Corn and bean farmers are seeking economic assistance to recover the crop areas affected by the prolonged drought. The president of CAMPO warned about the postrera harvest, planted between August and September: "That part that was planted, every last bit of it, 100% is at risk," he told the channel. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warned in September that Central America is facing a "Super El Niño" that will reach its most critical point between November 2026 and January 2027. According to the organization's projections, insufficient rainfall could push 700,000 more people into hunger in eastern El Salvador alone. A survey by Oxfam, an international humanitarian organization, among 354 communities in the Central American Dry Corridor, conducted between July and August, found that 89% identified drought as the main cause of the corn harvest loss. El Salvador has 114 districts within that corridor, one of the areas most affected in the region by the climate phenomenon.