South America Calling

We continue to see very favorable weather for developing soybeans in central Brazil with the rainy season now well underway. Wet weather in southern Brazil has slowed planting in some areas. However, with a drier weather pattern expected during the next five days, planting progress will increase. Only far northeast Brazil would benefit from more rain.

There will be mostly favorable soil moisture for corn planting and early soybean planting in the major growing areas of central Argentina. Dry weather into the end of the week will favor planting before showers and thunderstorms return during the weekend.

Our latest calculation of the sea surface temperature departure in the eastern equatorial pacific for the month of October was plus 1.4. This is up from the plus 0.4 observed during the month of September. Despite the fact that the atmospheric indices have yet to support the warming in the Pacific Ocean, we are seeing signs of El Nino characteristics to the weather pattern with wet conditions in the southern and eastern U.S., including the southern and eastern Midwest.

Michael Palmerino can be reached at Michael.palmerino@dtn.com

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