The South African Weather Service (SAWS) confirmed on 1 September that the current El Niño is strong and likely to strengthen further during spring, with sea-surface temperatures in the east-central tropical Pacific forecast to run more than 3°C above average.

Its outlook places most of South Africa in a below-normal rainfall band from October to December 2026, with above-normal temperatures expected over much of the country. A similar pattern is indicated for November 2026 to January 2027, sharpening the planting-period risk for summer-crop regions.

How aligned are the SAWS and SADC outlooks?

The SADC released its outlook on 28 August, after the Thirty-Third Southern Africa Climate Outlook Forum in Namibia. It broadly aligns with SAWS, favouring below-normal rainfall across most of South Africa from October to December, and drier conditions over parts of the country from January to March 2027.

Both agencies expect above-normal temperatures, with SADC applying that signal across most of the wider region. The Department of Agriculture added context on 2 September, noting that above-normal rainfall during the 2025/26 summer had lifted dam levels and soil moisture in most summer-rainfall areas.

Winter-rainfall zones have recorded shortages — an asymmetry producers running both summer and winter programmes will need to balance.

Why didn't 1997/98 match the other very strong droughts?

The SAWS has logged 14 El Niño events since 1979: five weak, five moderate, one strong, and three very strong. The very-strong trio — 1982/83, 1997/98, and 2015/16 — produced sharply different rainfall outcomes in South Africa.

1982/83 and 2015/16 coincided with widespread drought. The 1997/98 event, by contrast, delivered slightly above-normal rainfall across parts of the summer-rainfall region. That single counter-example matters: it shows a very-strong classification can still produce a wetter patch inside an otherwise dry country, and it sets the historical floor for how much the SAWS and SADC signals can diverge from on-farm conditions.

The historical record supports a key caveat in the current outlook: El Niño changes the probability of certain seasonal conditions, but its strength alone does not determine South Africa's rainfall outcome. Other regional drivers, including the Indian Ocean Dipole flagged by SADC, will also shape what actually unfolds. ENSO is one of three phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation — the other two are La Niña and ENSO-neutral — and is one of several climate drivers on the region.

What does this outlook actually change on the farm?

Total summer rainfall is only one measure of a season. Onset, distribution, dry-spell length, and rainy-season end-date can each swing crop and veld performance independently. That is why the DoA's 2 September advisory emphasised a layered response — soil-moisture conservation, planting windows, cultivar choice, water use, veld carrying capacity, grazing management and livestock water — rather than a single prescription.

Above-normal temperatures across both outlooks raise evaporation and crop water demand. That makes carry-over soil moisture from the 2025/26 wet summer more valuable than it would otherwise be, and increases the importance of stored water in farm dams and boreholes.

Cultivar choice and planting dates are the decisions where the current outlook should pull plans toward drier-tolerant or shorter-season options, while remaining reversible as the season develops.

For producers, "below normal" describes a probability band rather than a fixed deviation. SAWS and SADC both stress that no broad seasonal category can describe what happens in any given week or on any individual farm — which is why the advisory response is layered rather than prescriptive.

What should farmers watch next?

Producers should track monthly and seasonal forecasts for any geographic shift or intensification of the signal. As rains develop, the practical tests will be rainfall onset, dry-spell length, soil-moisture readings, dam and borehole levels, and crop and veld conditions on individual farms.

The DoA stated on 2 September that it would continue monthly advisories and daily extreme-weather warnings through the season. The next usable update will follow the start of the rainy season, when the broad El Niño probability begins converting into the first farm-level data of the 2026/27 summer.