Feb 2, 2018 forecast—CLIMATECH AND MJO- –(Map above)
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While La Nina is only weak in nature and earlier forecasts painted a mostly rosy picture for South American soybean production, weather maps, in the past two weeks, have been “too wet” in their prediction of rains for Argentina.
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The situation is becoming more dire for Argentina production, which now has a chance to fall below the critical 50 MMT mark. While Brazil has enjoyed generally ideal weather this winter (their summer), in the four weeks to come, all eyes will be watching Rio Grande Do Sul, the third largest Brazilian soy producer.
In the meantime, while soybean prices have rallied, the drought in the Plains wheat areas is one of the worst since 1996. This is something we began forecasting, early on, last November.
As grain prices spiral up, natural gas prices have fallen some 18% off their late January highs. The reason has to do with the MJO in one of the strongest instances of “phase 7” in the month of February. I had alerted our subscribers that this might happen as early as February 2nd.
This condition has offset cold signals in both Canada and the arctic. However, the MJO may begin to move, and die, later in February and March. If this happens, it would set the stage for a much colder March weather pattern.
