Will El Niño bring winter precipitation?
Aug. 17, 2026
By Mary Hightower
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Fast Facts
- Crop irrigation wells running without breaks
- Arkansas Delta soil moisture in driest percentile
(986 words)
STUTTGART, Ark. — The rich farmland flanking the Mississippi River is green with row crops, but the soil underneath is thirsty.
“Subsoil moisture is basically non-existent across much of the Delta,” said Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Chronic high temperatures make any rainfall disappear quickly.
Moisture below the soil surface is important as a buffer against dry periods. A map from Drought.gov that compares current soil moisture to a 1-meter depth to historical conditions from 1981-2013, puts much of the Delta in the driest 0-2 percentile.
There was little hope for relief from the hot, dry weather.
Last week, the National Weather Service at Little Rock advised Arkansans to prepare for a “potentially historic Arkansas heat wave,” noting that temperatures at Little Rock’s airport could reach 10 consecutive days at or above 100 degrees.
“We have high confidence in a prolonged period of dangerous heat from today through at least Aug. 22,” the weather service said.
The last time Arkansas saw a streak of this type was August to September 2000.
“This extended period of significantly higher than normal temperatures combined with very little rainfall sets an almost perfect staging for a flash drought across much of the state of Arkansas,” the weather service said.
A “flash drought” is defined as a rapid onset or intensification of drought set in motion by lower-than-normal precipitation in conjunction with abnormally high temperatures and winds.
The National Centers for Environmental Information drought recovery map on Aug. 17 showed Southeastern Arkansas needing 14.77 inches of rain to recover from drought and 10.46 inches in the east central Delta. Northwest Arkansas had the least rain needed for recovery at 7.71 inches.
Crop impacts
None of this is good news for Arkansas farmers.
“Parts of Arkansas are now forecast to have more than 10 consecutive days of 100 degrees or more,” said Hardke. “That’s going to be a problem for rice drying down for harvest.
“The rice plants and the grain can dry down too fast,” Hardke said. “They can also die early and start to lodge, opening the potential for grain shattering.
“Grains can overdry, making them more brittle and hurting milling yields,” he said.
In the cotton fields, “we are struggling,” said Zachary Treadway, extension cotton and peanut agronomist for the Division of Agriculture.
“A lot of the crop is still filling bolls, and the water needs are highest during this stage,” he said. “And there's no rainfall to be found.
“We are irrigating like crazy, but irrigation with no rainfall will never replace Mother Nature,” Treadway said. “We call it deficit irrigation. We will never provide the moisture provided by rain.
“The hot nights are also hurting us,” he said. “The crop is not able to cool down at night because we are seeing overnight lows hovering around 80 degrees or higher. That leads to fruit abortion and yield decrease. It is not great at the moment.”
Irrigation irritations
Less rain means more irrigation. Farmers in the Arkansas Delta have underground aquifers from which to draw irrigation, but that has caused problems of its own.
“Wells are being hit especially hard this year because there is never an opportunity to shut them down,” Hardke said.
Constant pumping can reduce underground water levels.
Mike Hamilton, extension irrigation instructor, said that “with groundwater levels low and wells being pushed hard, a pump can have difficulty maintaining a steady column of water.”
The declining water level can cause unstable pump conditions, allowing air to enter the system and causing pump cavitation, which can lead to irrigation pump damage, Hamilton said.
Hardke said he’s hopeful the El Niño will “lead to wetter winter months.”
But the help that would provide would be for this winter into next season, he said, which will not make up for this year’s “brutal” summer.
Looking to El Niño
El Niño is a global weather system characterized by pooling of unusually warm water in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. The Climate Prediction Center has said that “in October-December 2026, there is an 81 percent chance of a very strong El Niño.”
Earlier this week, the CPC added that “El Niño will strengthen through the end of the year, with a 97 percent chance it will persist through early spring 2027.”
The current hot weather pattern in Arkansas is not driven by El Niño, said James Bryant, meteorologist and co-founder of the Arkansas Weather Network. However, El Niño may bring much-needed precipitation at the end of the year.
“El Niño typically means we're going to have a more active storm track during the cool season,” Bryant said. “And with the strong El Niño that we're going into, all the previous cases that we saw had a wetter November-December time frame.
“November and December kind of kicks off our wettest time of year,” he said. “I expect that we'll have at least a pretty good 8- to 12-week period of above-average precipitation to end 2026.”
However, the weather may dry out in January and February.
“If we get shocks of cooler air in January and February, precipitation may be a little harder to come by,” Bryant said.
Looking at past El Niños, “the strongest we’ve tracked was 1997-98,” he said. “We’re heading into a very strong — maybe even a record strong El Niño, which is kind of uncharted territory.”
However, “when El Niño suddenly collapses — as it's going to do next spring — that can typically leave Arkansas with a signal for a wet early spring. So, it may reverse and put us in an above-average category for precipitation in March,” Bryant said.
“Each previous case of a very strong El Niño we tracked featured a quick weakening after the cool season, but it is also reflected in the long-range Climate Prediction Center outlook,” he said.
El Niño collapses or ends as the heat from the warm Pacific pool of water is discharged.
Listen: to Jarrod Hardke discussing the effects of heat on Arkansas crops.
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. To learn more about ag and food research in Arkansas, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station at aaes.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture,
communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices.
Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service,
the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s
historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 22 entities within the University of Arkansas
System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system
campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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