Weather and Market Commentary- September 4, 2009

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Weather and Market Commentary- September 4, 2009

September 4, 2009 by sabrina829

Friday, September 4, 2009:

We are just ahead of a three-day trading break for the holiday weekend, but it certainly looks like the trade will go home today without much fear that the maps by Monday evening will change and suggest an imminent freeze event for the Corn Belt. The weather pattern that we have right now, and the one coming up for the next ten days (or even longer) is one that will feature several cases of slow-moving, closed, upper-level low pressure systems. Typically the models have an awful time in determining how those systems will evolve, and I doubt that this situation is any different. Thus, the odds are high that the forecast given to the trade today will be different by Monday night. That said, weather patterns that feature these upper-level low pressure systems are usually NOT ones that bring early freezes to the Midwest. These can be cool weather patterns (and indeed I do not think that the Midwest is overly warm over the next two weeks), but the cool conditions are due to clouds and rain and not due to an overabundance of cold air. We have an upper level low pressure system on the maps right now over the center of the Nation, and it has been responsible for a few areas of rain (some with locally heavy totals) over scattered parts of the Plains and far western Corn Belt over the past 24 hours (with considerable rain still falling this morning in eastern Kansas and northern Texas).

That low will gradually be working into the Delta and the far southeastern Corn Belt for today and especially the holiday weekend to put those areas under damp conditions (though especially heavy rains are not forecast. It will not be until a cold front comes through next Wednesday and Thursday that this system is cleared out of the Nation’s midsection. That front still looks to be the next threat of a widespread rainfall event for the Corn Belt. Just ahead of that cold front should be the warmest part of the ten-day forecast for the Midwest, with northwestern parts of the region warm for Sunday/Monday and much of the Midwest a bit above normal for Tuesday/Wednesday. Temperatures then look normal or a bit below normal in the heart of the Midwest for later next week and beyond. The warmest weather (with respect to normal) coming up still looks to be in the Northern Plains and Canadian prairies, where readings will be abnormally warm for today through about Monday and possibly again in the 11-15 day part of the forecast period. The forecast today takes us out to the time when some parts of the Northern Plains and Canadian prairies are to the dates when the first frost of the fall is normally seen.