The weatherman on crop weather around the world

Farm and Ranch February 4, 2010 Dr. Art Douglas, a climatologist from Creighton University, is known as the “weatherman” to those who attend the Pacific Northwest Farm Forum in Spokane. At that forum this week his forecast for the Pacific Northwest for this growing season was for ample moisture into June before it gets dry and then perhaps a couple of degrees warmer than normal during the summer.

Douglas doesn’t see any significant problems for grain production anywhere in the U.S. this year unless the current El Nino hangs on, which could make for planting delays in the Midwest but he doesn‘t expect that. As for the rest of the world;

Douglas: “Around the world, 100 year drought in Argentina has been broken by El Nino. There is a little dryness in northern Brazil but I don‘t think it will be enough for a crop problem. We are watching drought developing in Australia. The Australian feel the El Nino is going to last longer into their winter. If that‘s the case they may have problems with their winter wheat. We don‘t think so. We think El Nino is going to end earlier than that. China‘s slightly on the dry side. They had some cold early on. They haven‘t had a lot of moisture so their winter crops are maybe not doing as well as they should. And then winter wheat in terms of India is in great shape.”

Douglas’s forecast is based on an early end to the current El Nino. That is similar to what E.U. forecasters are saying but the U.S. government’s forecast is for El Nino to last longer into the year.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.