Ag Weather Forum

Some of you have recently asked about the status of El Nina/La Nina in the Pacific. "What's happening with that feature? I haven't seen anything for awhile." That's been the tone of the inquiries.

Well, the answer is pretty straightforward. You haven't seen, read or heard much about El Nino/La Nina because there hasn't been anything to say. The Pacific is in neutral and has been ever since last winter. (A description that always draws a chuckle at meetings is when I use the phrase "La Nada.")

That's not to say that the temperatures and the pressure readings (the Southern Oscillation Index or SOI) have not fluctuated back and forth, because they certainly have--after all, we're dealing with the rip-snorting ocean here. But there has been no definite warming (El Nino) or cooling (La Nina) trend established over a long-enough time frame to be able to say that the Pacific is either in El Nino or La Nina.

For the most part, this "La Nada" situation has been a non-threatening feature for crops. We only need to go back to the year 2011, when a very strong La Nina was in effect--and not only were there some late-planting issues, but we then experienced a very hot and dry late summer pattern, which shrank corn yields to an almost-unthinkable low figure of 147 bushels per acre. (We found out in 2012, of course, that yields could decline even more.) But this year, in general, summertime conditions have been such that total U.S. corn production is expected to rebound in a big way--as we have seen in the actions of the corn market the past several weeks.

Looking ahead to the fall season, the lack of an El Nino has several prominent implications. First, with El Nino not being a big feature, the prospect of an early frost is dialed back a little. Early-fall season cold snaps have a connection with El Nino's presence. That should offer at least some hope for areas of the northern Corn Belt where the delays in planting were the worst. As an example of El Nino and an early cold shot being connected--back in 2004, when parts of southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa got down into the range of 30 deg Fahrenheit or so around August 20, 2004---we had an El Nino going on during the time.

A second implication from a lack of El Nino formation is that--on the negative side--an avenue for bringing moisture recovery to the southern Plains is curtailed. That's the downside of the neutral Pacific--because for the southern Plains drought pattern to truly change, sustained periods of moisture need to occur.

The third implication that the neutral Pacific suggests is more of a wild card--and that is in the form of tropical weather system activity. Without the interference from El Nino-associated jet stream winds, tropical weather systems that form in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico have more of a free rein to evolve and move where they will. And, there could be quite a few of them relatively speaking. The National Hurricane Center is calling for possibly around 20 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher); and from seven to eleven of these storms reaching hurricane status (winds of 74 mph or higher), including three to as many as six major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale; winds of 111 mph or higher).

We know that hurricanes or their remnants can be major rain producers--including Hurricane Isaac in early fall 2012 and Superstorm Sandy last October (Sandy brought rain as far west as Michigan and Ohio) as fairly recent storms which come to mind. There was even some tropical influence with rain in Oklahoma and Texas in mid-July, when leftovers from Tropical Storm Chantal were part of the rainfall pattern in that event. But, as we all know, tropical systems can be very quirky in their track patterns and even in their moisture trails.

We will continue to monitor the Pacific for its signals and the impact on crop weather--but for now, it's about as much on the sideline in the macro sense as it can be.

Bryce

Twitter @BAndersonDTN

(CZ/ES)