ENSO Watch: What La Niña’s Fade and a Potential El Niño Mean for Coffee in 2026

CoffeeNetwork (New York) - The Pacific is in flux—and for coffee, that usually means the weather is, too. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) continues to hold a La Niña Advisory, but the signal is weakening fast. CPC’s latest diagnostics call for a transition to ENSO‑neutral during February–April 2026 (60% probability), with neutral conditions likely through the Northern Hemisphere summer (56% in June–August). Importantly for planners, CPC also flags non‑trivial odds (50–60%) of El Niño later in 2026, while cautioning that spring forecasts sit behind the “predictability barrier,” which lowers confidence.  At the same time, NOAA’s weekly evolution briefing shows below‑average SSTs lingering in the east‑central equatorial Pacific, but positive anomalies emerging in the far eastern Pacific—a configuration consistent with a fade‑out of La Niña.  The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and IRI corroborate the near‑term neutral outlook; WMO pegs ENSO‑neutral at ~60–70% from March–July, with El Niño odds slowly rising into mid‑year, and IRI’s plume similarly shifts from neutral in spring toward modest El Niño probabilities by summer.

Against this backdrop, coffee’s biggest origins will not respond uniformly. The same index value can mean different rainfall outcomes in Minas Gerais versus Vietnam’s Central Highlands.  And with climate change warming the baseline, hazard profiles in coffee lands have shifted toward warmer and drier extremes, raising the stakes of each ENSO swing.  Below, we translate today’s ENSO outlook into likely 2026 impacts for Brazil, Colombia, Central America, Vietnam, Indonesia and Africa, drawing on NOAA’s latest guidance and peer‑reviewed or industry analyses.

Brazil: A two‑track year—southern dryness risk vs. Minas rain tailwind

La Niña’s canonical footprint in Brazil leans drier in the South, with irregular rains in the Southeast/Central‑West and wetter conditions in the North/Northeast. That pattern returned during recent cold‑phase episodes, where Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina repeatedly absorbed rainfall deficits and crop stress.  Yet 2026 has, so far, delivered the opposite signal where it matters most for arabica: Minas Gerais logged 400–600 mm (16–24 in.) of rain from late December through February, a sharp rebound from last year that has buoyed tree condition and fruit set.  As CPC shifts the Pacific outlook from La Niña to ENSO‑neutral for spring–summer, the risk of persistent southern drought should slowly abate, though lingering dry shots are still possible until neutrality is firmly established. If a late‑2026 El Niño materializes, Southeast Brazil may pivot toward more frequent warmth and episodic dryness, raising questions for late flowering and early 2027 cherry fill; those scenarios merit close watching once CPC’s spring barrier lifts.

Colombia: From La Niña’s soggy stress to neutral’s reprieve—then what?

Colombia’s coffee belt is highly sensitive to ENSO, with La Niña tending to enhance rainfall and El Niño tilting drier, though topography modulates the intensity locally.  The USDA FAS has already penciled in a 5.3% production drop to 12.5 million bags in MY 2025/26 due to heavy rains, reflecting the tail end of the recent La Niña moisture regime and its knock‑on effects: disease pressure, harvest delays, and quality variability.  As NOAA leads the outlook toward ENSO‑neutral into mid‑2026, rain extremes should ease, supporting a gradual normalization of fieldwork and drying windows through the main/mitaca harvest sequence. However, the risk flip later in the year matters. Should El Niño re‑emerge, Colombian zones often see drier‑than‑normal conditions, with implications for flowering continuity, cherry expansion and rust dynamics if warmth aligns with moisture deficits—patterns observed in prior warm‑phase episodes and highlighted by regional ENSO‑impact studies. [benzinga.com], [cpc.ncep.noaa.gov]

Central America: Disease now, drought later?

Across Central America, ENSO’s fingerprints are asymmetric: La Niña years often run wetter, elevating fungal disease risks and complicating harvest/drying logistics, while El Niño years bring heat and rainfall deficits that compress flowering windows and limit bean fill, especially on Pacific‑exposed slopes.  Long‑horizon analyses show that climate hazards across coffee origins are increasingly synchronous—multiple countries hit by warm/dry shocks at the same time during El Niño—raising price volatility and supply‑chain risk.  With CPC pointing to neutral through mid‑year, growers may catch a breather from extremes this spring; but if El Niño emerges late‑2026, producers should prepare for tighter moisture, greater heat stress, and more irrigation/shade reliance on lower, warmer farms.

Vietnam: Central Highlands rainfall mechanics change with the phase

New research on the diurnal rainfall cycle in Vietnam’s Central Highlands—the robusta engine—shows that cold‑phase ENSO years (La Niña) enhance afternoon convection and westward‑propagating rainfall bands, tied to strengthened equatorial easterlies and amplified day–night thermal contrasts. Yield outcomes hinge on timing: well‑timed rains aid fruit expansion, but excess moisture hampers drying and elevates disease.  Broader climate‑risk work underscores that ENSO is a reliable hazard predictor for Vietnam, with warm‑phase events historically linked to suboptimal temperatures and precipitation deficits that erode bean size and quality.  Given CPC’s neutral‑through‑summer outlook, expect more balanced rainfall in the near term; if El Niño builds into late‑2026, drought risk and heat stress rise materially across the Central Highlands.

Indonesia: Neutral relief now, El Niño vigilance ahead

Indonesia sits near the epicenter of ENSO teleconnections. Historically, La Niña increases rainfall across much of the archipelago, while El Niño tightens moisture and elevates drought and fire risk—a pattern that has repeatedly dented robusta output and raised defect rates when harvests collide with heat and dryness.  Global hazard analysis also singles out Indonesia among regions where warm‑phase ENSO amplifies compound warm/dry events that hit yields and quality simultaneously.  With La Niña fading to neutral, near‑term rainfall should normalize, easing logistics; yet any late‑year El Niño would quickly rekindle moisture deficits, especially in Sumatra and Java, warranting early irrigation planning and mulching

Africa: Big dependence on the rains, big exposure to ENSO variability

Across Africa’s coffee belts, ENSO drives seasonally distinct rainfall anomalies: reviews highlight a strong dipole between eastern and southern Africa in OND/DJF and notable anomalies in the Sahel during JAS, mediated by Indian Ocean interactions; impacts vary by event flavor and decade.  The risk is rising: multi‑origin studies show more frequent compound hazards since 1980, with a shift from cold/wet toward warm/dry extremes—conditions that are particularly damaging to arabica at lower elevations.  In southern Africa, the classic pattern is El Niño = warmer/drier core summers; La Niña = cooler/wetter, though nonlinearity means not every event behaves canonically—useful context for seasonal decisions in Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and northern South Africa.  As NOAA moves the outlook to neutral through mid‑year, some of La Niña’s excess wetness in East Africa should relax; but a late‑2026 El Niño would raise drought odds during key long‑rains/short‑rains windows in Ethiopia and Kenya, as historical composites and reviews attest.

What to watch next—and how to prepare

Two variables now dominate risk planning. First, timing: CPC’s next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion (March 12, 2026) will update neutral probabilities and refine late‑year El Niño odds; in parallel, NOAA’s weekly evolution slides offer granular looks at where anomalies are weakening vs. persisting along the equator.  Second, local rainfall alignment with crop phenology: even within the same ENSO phase, Minas Gerais and Huila—or Dak Lak and Lampung—can experience very different rainfall and temperature departures, reshaping outcomes for flowering, fruit set, disease pressure and post‑harvest drying.

For the next two quarters, coffee markets should assume reduced volatility from weather extremes as neutrality settles in—with the caveat that a late‑2026 El Niño would re‑introduce widespread warm/dry risk, particularly for Colombia/Central America, Vietnam/Indonesia and East Africa, while parts of southern Brazil could again flirt with rainfall deficits.

Alexis Rubinstein