Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Horrible travel weather will be experienced across the Midwest today throughout tonight and even tomorrow in many areas. Already, there has been quite a lot of snow west of the Mississippi River and the winds are starting to blow at 20-30 mph with gust to over 40 at times. This will result in tremendous blowing and drifting over the roads with blinding visibility ant times. These sort of conditions will be spreading to the eastern Cornbelt today into tomorrow. A bitterly cold arctic air mass will be diving straight south and southeast and this will result in temperatures dropping to 15-20 degrees later in the week from Houston to New Orleans. In fact, this is a very dangerous situation for the Florida Orange juice area for this Sunday and Monday mornings. Record or near record lows will be established after breaking some records in that area yesterday morning. Lows, especially on Monday morning could reach the upper teens well to the south of Orlando. In Orlando itself, lows will probably dip to about 23 since the reporting station is downwind from the huge city. There is good news for the future, however with the overall weather pattern. There is mounting evidence that the pattern will be turning warmer especially in the Midwest and northern Plains as El Nino is perhaps “trying to show its might”. The Eastern and southeastern U.S. will be slower to warm up but even here it will be gradually getting milder after the middle of next week. Turning our attention to other parts of the world, the weather in South America continues to be perfect for the crops. There is plenty of rain and close to normal temperatures. This perfect pattern will continue indefinitely. The perfect weather is the reason that the soybean production estimates have been raised yesterday. The overnight soybean market is reflecting this news as it was trading sharply lower. There is no doubt that the most important factor in the soybean market over the next month or two will continue to be the South American Weather.
