Drier Skies for Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia's Altiplano, FEWS NET Blog Says

A blog post issued on 14 September 2026 by the agroclimatology team at FEWS NET sets out what seasonal models are projecting for rainfall across South America as a strong El Niño strengthens, pointing to widening precipitation deficits across the north and centre of the continent just as the austral summer growing season begins. The document identifies FEWS NET as the U.S. Department of State's Famine Early Warning Systems Network, and the post is written by Cassidy Ochoa, a NASA GEM Consortium Fellow and PhD student at the University at Albany.

FEWS NET frames the question in trade terms: between 2021 and 2025, the post states, the United States bought $23.3 billion worth of food from South America — coffee, fruit, vegetables, sugar and other tropical goods — with Brazil, Colombia and Peru the largest suppliers.

What the seasonal forecasts show

The central forecast cited by FEWS NET is a seasonal probability product from the Columbia Climate School's International Research Institute (IRI). As of July 2026, according to the post, the IRI placed the odds of below-normal precipitation between November 2026 and January 2027 above 70 percent for northeastern South America, southern Chile and the Bolivian Altiplano. FEWS NET notes the forecast was recalibrated using NCEP-CFSv2, CanSIPS-IC4, COLA-RSMAS-CESM1, GFDL-SPEAR and NASA's GEOS-S2S-2 season-to-season climate model.

FEWS NET also summarises July 2026 output from the North American Multimodel Ensemble, which projects below-average rainfall across northern South America, and specifically Colombia and Venezuela, of between 1 and 4 mm/day below average from August to November 2026. The post says deficits deepen between the August–October and September–November forecast windows, with the switch from normal to below-average conditions occurring between August and September. For October, FEWS NET reports projected deficits of 23–46 percent below average in northwestern and southeastern Colombia and 32–65 percent below average in northwestern Brazil.

The post additionally lists figures for parts of central and northern Brazil, and for the Bolivia–Peru border, expressed as more than 100 percent below average. Because a rainfall shortfall cannot exceed the whole of the long-term average, those particular values are not reproduced here.

One gap worth flagging for readers tracking the event itself: the FEWS NET post describes a strong El Niño as under way and strengthening, but does not quote a sea surface temperature value for a named index such as Niño 3.4 or the ONI, nor does it attribute a formal declaration to any monitoring agency.

Bolivia's rain-fed crops

FEWS NET singles out Bolivia as particularly exposed because the country depends primarily on rain-fed agriculture for both subsistence and trade, and because disrupted rainy seasons can raise crop failure rates and food insecurity. Projections cited in the post show below-average precipitation from September to November growing in both intensity and extent, from 15.25 to 61 mm/month below average.

The pattern is not uniform. FEWS NET says areas east of the Andes are expected to receive above-average rainfall from August to October, with increases of 4–61 percent in drier Andean regions and 0.8–12 percent in wetter Andean areas. West of the Andes, conditions across the Bolivian Altiplano are expected to turn progressively drier — which the post links to traditional rain-fed crops such as potatoes and quinoa grown around La Paz, and to the livelihoods, culture and sustenance built around them.

Mixed effects and the meaning of a 'super' event

The post stresses that El Niño's regional consequences vary widely. FEWS NET points to research associating El Niño rainfall patterns with higher maize and soybean yields in southern Brazil, and to a study suggesting El Niño may help sustain soil moisture in the Peruvian Altiplano in the weeks to months before planting, a phenomenon known as "pushpa". Set against that, the post lists accelerated glacial retreat and the loss of Bolivia's Chacaltaya Glacier, and drought across Brazil, Chile and Colombia.

On terminology, FEWS NET cites a special report from the Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative (GEOGLAM), which holds that a very strong or "super" El Niño signals improved predictive skill rather than necessarily more frequent or more intense major events. FEWS NET adds that a stronger signal makes crop-yield anticipation easier for organisations that rely on such forecasts, while warning that climate systems can still deliver unexpected outcomes. Both FEWS NET and GEOGLAM say they will keep monitoring crop conditions and climate forecasts through the season. The original post is on the FEWS NET website; see also our news and science sections.