An unusually powerful El Niño later this year could exacerbate food security fears as disruption caused by the Iran war strains supply for crucial fertilizer products.

Climate scientists warn it appears increasingly likely that a planet-warming El Niño will take shape over the coming months, with U.S. meteorologists estimating a one-in-three chance of a “strong” weather event forming in October to December.

European climate models indicate an even higher probability of a very strong or “super El Niño,” although the so-called spring barrier means that these forecasts can be inaccurate.

El Niño — or “the little boy” in Spanish — is widely recognized as the warming of the sea surface temperature, which occurs naturally every few years. Such an event is declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average.

A super El Niño, which doesn’t have an official scientific category, is understood to refer to an exceptionally strong phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), when sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific rise at least 2 degrees Celsius above normal.

Chris Jaccarini, senior analyst, food and farming at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said 2026 was shaping up to be another year in which conflict and climate risks have become a costly reality.

“Food prices are being squeezed from both sides: by climate extremes disrupting production in major growing regions, and by a food system still hooked on fossil fuels and therefore exposed to spikes in gas, fertiliser, transport and packaging costs,” Jaccarini told CNBC by email.

“That is why the prospect of a strong El Niño matters,” he continued. “It can turbocharge weather risks in a climate already destabilised by human emissions, compounding inflation driven by high fossil fuel prices.”

Some commodities are particularly exposed to the weather event, with El Niño typically putting upward pressure on cocoa, food oils, rice and sugar, Jaccarini said. He also cited broader risks for other products linked to the tropics, such as bananas, tea, coffee, chocolate and soy-fed meat.

Expectations of El Niño’s return follow a multi-year La Niña event, which generally has the effect of lowering global temperatures compared to normal years.

Oil and gas prices and fertilizer costs have skyrocketed due to the Iran war severely disrupting supplies through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Analysis published by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) last month warned that the number of food-insecure people across the globe could reach levels last seen at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

The WFP estimates that the number of people facing acute hunger could jump by 45 million if the Iran war persists beyond June and oil prices stay above $100 per barrel. This prediction would add to the 318 million people across the globe who are already food insecure.

Dawid Heyl, a co-portfolio manager for the global natural resources strategy at Ninety One, said the prospect of an El Niño event poses a risk to global food production, but the extent of this risk depends on when the climate phenomenon develops, how extreme it is and how long it lasts.

“I’ve been saying this to so many colleagues and anyone who would listen, but I wasn’t really concerned about Russia-Ukraine in terms of food inflation,” Heyl told CNBC by video call.

“I am a lot more concerned about [the Iran war] this time around, because of the impact on nitrogen, fertilizer production and availability,” Heyl said.

Asked about the prospect of a powerful El Niño event developing in the wake of the sprawling Middle East crisis, Heyl said: “If you get two negative factors like that combining then it could really be tough going.”

The likes of India, Australia, Brazil and Argentina were all cited as countries that could be significantly exposed to El Niño, Heyl said, albeit for different reasons.

The European Union, meanwhile, said earlier this month that an El Niño event later this year threatens northwestern Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan with dry conditions, “posing a significant risk to the main agricultural season.”

For the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s Jaccarini, the answer to deepening food security fears lies in recognizing that risks to the global food system are not going away anytime soon.

“With traditional geopolitical partnerships under strain, international collaboration matters more than ever. Reducing food price volatility depends on reaching net zero together,” Jaccarini said.

“Climate finance from wealthy nations to producer countries with low climate readiness helps farmers adapt to climate impacts and protect crops and livelihoods,” he added.

— CNBC’s Chloe Taylor contributed to this report.

Countries across the globe are increasingly turning to a decades-old weather modification technique as part of a push to control when and where it rains.

Alongside the U.S. and China, which boasts the world’s largest weather modification program, France, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia are among a growing list of countries to have experimented with cloud seeding.

For many, the embrace of rain-making operations stems from the need to boost water supplies as global demand continues to rise amid the climate crisis.

Others have sought to use cloud seeding to disperse fog at airports, tackle air pollution, reduce hail damage or even to manipulate the weather for major events, such as the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Cloud seeding aims to improve a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow by introducing tiny particles, usually silver iodide. The process is limited both in area and duration and, over time, is estimated to increase local precipitation by 5% to 15%.

The concept is not without controversy, however. Since first taking place in the 1940s, cloud seeding experiments have raised concern over potential environmental and ecological risks and stoked regional security tensions, with countries accusing each other of stealing rain.

Augustus Doricko, CEO of Rainmaker, a California-based cloud seeding company, said there are two dynamics at play that seem to be rekindling people’s interest in the technology — both in the U.S. and across the world.

“One is truly just circumstance, a lot of these countries and regions are suffering from more volatility in climate and precipitation patterns and their water supply, and so it’s leading them through necessity to be more creative than they were in the past,” Doricko told CNBC by telephone.

“Two, and I think this is like the real meat and potatoes of why Rainmaker got started, it’s because in the last few years there have been some fundamental breakthroughs in how to do measurements and attribution of cloud seeding effects.”

Despite an 80-year legacy, Doricko said interest in cloud seeding “really fell off” in the 1970s and 1980s because it had been difficult to accurately measure how much precipitation derived from cloud seeding deployments.

Recent technological improvements now make it possible to verify the success of these deployments in real time, Doricko said.

The company, which says it intends to arrest the aridification of the American West, has grown rapidly in recent months, from just 19 employees at the beginning of 2025 to 120 today, a trend that appears to underscore the booming interest in cloud seeding.

Yet, despite its name, Doricko said the company’s cloud seeding projects are mostly designed to make it snow.

“I misnamed the company it turns out, and ‘Snowmaker’ probably would have been more apt. It doesn’t sound as good for what it’s worth,” Doricko said.

He added: “I think that the most important thing for Rainmaker to do this season is just to make unambiguous evidence of manmade snow — and do it so often that it is undeniably a viable and scalable technology.”

Other U.S.-based cloud seeding companies include Weather Modification Inc. in North Dakota and North American Weather Consultants in Utah, although some U.S. states, such as Florida and Tennessee, have banned weather modification activities.

In terms of state-level support, China has reportedly backed its weather modification program with $2 billion between 2014 and 2021, while Saudi Arabia spent $256 million in 2022 to support the first year of its regional cloud seeding program.

Authorities in Iran reportedly sprayed clouds with chemicals over the Urmia lake basin late last year, seeking to boost rainfall to combat the country’s worst drought in decades.

Such projects are not always successful, however. Together with the Delhi government, a team at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur recently reported mixed results following a cloud seeding trial to tackle air pollution in India’s capital city.

The IIT said in a statement at the time that its attempt was “not completely successful” due to a lack of moisture in the air, before adding that there had been a measurable reduction in particulate matter following the experiment.

Diana Francis, head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences lab at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, said cloud seeding can “modestly enhance” precipitation in the right conditions.

“But it is incremental, not transformative, and works best as part of a broader water and air-quality strategy,” Francis told CNBC by email.

Cloud seeding operations might typically cost between $1 to $10 per hectare-meter of additional water, Francis said, noting that while this remains highly variable, it works out to be much cheaper than desalination.

There are also other key caveats to consider, such as a strong dependence on cloud microphysics (given cloud seeding only works on existing clouds), problems with attribution and potential geopolitical and legal issues regarding downwind impacts, Francis said.

Studies have shown no significant impact on either human health or the environment from previous silver iodide cloud seeding projects, according to the World Meteorological Organization, while further investigation is needed to assess downwind effects.

The U.N. weather agency has also acknowledged that significant challenges in public, social and local acceptance of rain-making operations remain widely evident.

U.S. airlines began canceling Sunday flights and waiving cancellation and change fees for airports from Virginia to Maine ahead of another massive winter storm on the East Coast, set to once again put carriers to the test at the tail-end of winter break.

Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, United Airlines and Spirit Airlines waived fees and fare differences for passengers if they can travel as late as Feb. 26. Southwest Airlines said customers are eligible for a change without paying a difference in fare if they can rebook to fly or fly standby within two weeks.

The storm could bring between 13 and 18 inches of snow to parts of southern Connecticut and southeast New York, as well as winds of up to 55 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service. The blizzard warning is set to begin at 6 a.m. ET Sunday.

As of 4:30 pm ET Saturday, close to 400 U.S. flights were canceled, according to FlightAware. Delta had the most, with 174 cancellations or 5% of its mainline schedule. New York airports, which make up a major Delta hub, were the most affected by Sunday’s disruptions.

The National Weather Service raised its initial assessment of the potential severity of a storm. The weather service now says 1 to 2 feet (about 30 to 61 centimeters) of snow is possible in many areas. Blizzard warnings were also issued for New York City, Long Island, southern Connecticut and coastal communities in New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The weather service warned that the storm’s steady winds of 25 to 35 mph (40 to 56 kph) would “make travel dangerous, if not impossible.”

Winter Storm Fern in January, followed by bitter cold, caused mass travel disruptions across a large swath of the U.S.

American Airlines had struggled to recover, drawing harsh criticism from flight crews, some of whom were stranded and had to sleep at airports, heightening tension between frontline employees and the company’s CEO, Robert Isom.

The storm cost American between $150 million and $200 million in revenue, the carrier said last month on an earnings call.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.