Photo: Scott Greer
Weather has always been part of ranching. What changes from season to season is how much uncertainty ranchers have to manage around it.
That question was especially relevant in Houston this month, where water researchers, investors, policymakers and industry leaders gathered at Rice University’s Water Nexus Conference. Ranchbot CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Coppin joined a panel focused on financing the next generation of water infrastructure, bringing an agricultural perspective to a conversation that often happens at a much larger scale.
For a Texas rancher, water infrastructure can be as immediate as the tank at the other end of the property or the pump that needs to keep working through another stretch of difficult weather.
And heading into fall, the weather itself is getting harder to ignore.
A Strong El Niño Is Taking Shape
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says El Niño is strengthening, with a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event during fall and winter 2026-27. Its September outlook also gives the event a 75% chance of reaching a level during October through December that would exceed previous El Niño events in the historical record dating to 1950.
But there is an important caveat for ranchers: a strong El Niño does not dictate what will happen on any individual property.
El Niño can shift the odds of certain temperature and precipitation patterns across the United States, but those patterns are not guaranteed. For producers, that leaves a familiar problem. Decisions about cattle, forage and water still have to be made before anyone knows exactly how the season will unfold.
Rain Doesn’t Always Solve the Water Problem
For Texas ranchers, rainfall is only part of the equation.
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension notes that rainfall is a major limiting factor for livestock production on Texas rangelands. But how effectively that rainfall can be used depends on conditions on the land and how water is captured and managed.
The same principle applies to livestock water.
A ranch can receive rain and still have a problem at a tank, trough, pump or pipeline. Water may be available in one area but not where cattle are grazing. A pump failure can interrupt supply regardless of what the rain gauge says.
That makes water reliability partly a weather problem and partly an infrastructure problem.
On a large property, there is another complication: distance.
When the Problem Is Miles Away
Checking water has traditionally required ranchers or employees to physically travel to water points across the property. That is manageable until a system fails between checks, or conditions change faster than expected.
A tank dropping unexpectedly, a pump that stops operating or an unusual change in flow may be happening miles away from the person responsible for it.
This is where the water conversation starts to become an information problem as well.
Ranchbot builds satellite-connected monitoring systems that allow ranchers to remotely track water levels and other parts of their water infrastructure, including pumps, troughs, flow and pressure. Rather than replacing the physical work of maintaining that infrastructure, the technology gives producers another way to see what is happening across the property.
For Coppin, who grew up around ranching in Australia, that visibility is particularly important when conditions become less predictable. Ranchers cannot control when rain arrives or exactly how an El Niño develops. They can have better information about the systems they are responsible for.
Managing the Variables Ranchers Can Control
That distinction matters heading into an uncertain season.
Weather forecasts help producers understand the conditions that may be ahead. They cannot tell a rancher whether a particular tank will have enough water next Tuesday or whether a pump on the far side of the property is operating normally.
Those are different kinds of information, and ranchers increasingly need both.
Remote monitoring is one tool. Regular maintenance, backup water plans and an understanding of where the most vulnerable parts of a water system are remain important as well. The objective is not to predict every problem, but to reduce the amount of time between something going wrong and someone knowing about it.
That becomes more valuable when weather itself is volatile.
A wetter period can create its own management challenges. A dry stretch can put more pressure on stored water and infrastructure. Heat can change livestock demand. Conditions can also vary considerably across a state as large as Texas.
The response, therefore, is less about betting on one weather outcome than preparing the operation to function across several of them.
The broader water conversation may take place at universities, conferences and investment tables, but for ranchers its consequences are far more immediate. They show up in pastures, pumps, pipelines and tanks, and in whether cattle have reliable access to water when they need it.
A potentially historic El Niño makes the forecast worth watching. For Texas ranchers, knowing what is happening with their own water may matter just as much.