Guest post by David Archibald
Following on from this post on the effect of excess water in the Midwest affecting planting, this graphic shows rainfall in the 30 days up to 26th May:
Figure 1: Rainfall in the Midwest in the 30 days to 26th May.
One place had almost an inch a day on average with a maximum of 28.25 inches. And what follows? The answer is more rain as shown by this seven day forecast:
Figure 2: Precipitation Forecast to 06/02/2019
The same area is going to get another four to five inches. The window for planting corn this season is now closed in the northern Corn Belt. All that water is going to end up in the Gulf of Mexico and that journey will concentrate a lot of minds in the floodplain of the Mississippi over the next few weeks.
The Bonnet Carre Spillway 12 miles west of New Orleans has had more use in recent years as show by this figure:
Figure 3: Bonnet Carre Spillway openings 1948 – 2019 and F10.7 flux
The last time there was a cluster of opening was during the 1970s cooling period associated with the weak Solar Cycle 20. The F10.7 radio flux is the most accurate measure of solar activity. Interesting reading on the history of flood control in the Mississippi valley is provided by this article and this book.
The story so far is that a lot of the corn crop in the northern Corn Belt didn’t get planted this year due to excess water on the ground and there will be a big flood of the Mississippi valley. What is the worst thing that could happen from here? Frosts hitting the emergent corn. The following graphic is from this tweet from a farmer somewhere on the Great Plains who says:
Going through some old stuff in my office. Came across this slide show by Dan De Boer (marketing) in January 2012. He died during the “grain rally” that summer. Lots of prophetic tidbits from 2012 drought to the cold/wet #noplant19 God help us if these things keep coming true.
Figure 4: Graphic warning of freezes in the northern Corn Belt in 2019-2020.
The chart at the top is from this article of mine in 2011 comparing solar activity during the Dalton Minimum with the setup for Solar Cycles 24 and 25. Mr De Boer’s warning is this:
Look out for summer freezes in the northern corn belt in 2019 – 2020. Look out for summer freezes in all of the US in 2030-2031.
A few days ago the New York Times carried an article on an algae bloom killing farmed salmon in Norway. By line four they had blamed global warming for that. The owners of one of the farms affected told me that it was a natural event that was mostly driven by high stream runoff in this instance.
The New York Times will have a hard time blaming global warming for frosts in July. But they will try.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare
Early snow (40cm in MAY) in the hills in the SH (Victoria Australia) and late winter in the NH.
Just heard the snow field people say, last time it was this ”good’ was back in 2000..
Hmmm.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a national plumbing system that pumped water out of homes, cities and fields to reservoirs in the dry west. Just dreaming. I’ll bet the money spent on Mars and moon expeditions would have went a long way on pipeline costs.
Hey, if anyone wants to spend the money, I’ll make an aqua duct from the Midwest all the way to California. Just need a few trillion dollars. 😀 No droughts ever again!
There’s a reason we have massive complex drainage systems in the midwest and north midwest.
We had a good frost in southern Manitoba this morning courtesy global warming. A friend cold not golf so he joined us for coffee.
How cold does it have to be for golfers to call it a day in Manitoba? I’ve played in Maryland when I couldn’t putt out because of ice around the cup.
“The New York Times will have a hard time blaming global warming for frosts in July. But they will try.”
I dont know why we even bother saying things like this. We know they have changed the game from “Warming” to “Change” and change includes calling things extreme or unprecdented. Therefore frosts in July are further proof of extreme weather due to climate change. No investigation or review of history or facts needed.
And it’s all about “extremes” as that’s much scarier than increases of reactions of a degree. Earlier this year in the UK we had an “expert” comparing a maximum temperature with an average, and then claiming that that maximum in – 20 degrees C -was “twice as hot” as the 10 degree C average! All unchallenged by the BBC despite the total nonsense being spouted.
When conditions force late planting in the corn belt there will be more soybeans planted. BTW Indiana cantaloupe, usually the best to be found anywhere, is exceptional this year!
Last evening had a funnel cloud pass to the NW of my place here in southern Madison County, IN. No damage around my place but it took some trees and roofs to the west of me in the vicinity of Pendleton, IN and my girls that live about 4 miles NE of my place had ping-pong ball size hail. First tornado warning of the year here. We were on the rainy side of the storm and so I couldn’t get a video of it. https://www.heraldbulletin.com/news/update-reported-tornado-causes-extensive-damage-in-pendleton/article_ed7ef8ec-80e2-11e9-a9f1-abbbb4949f05.html
The high pressure system in the southeast U.S. is keeping the jet stream stationary over the central U.S. and that’s why we keep getting these trains of storms as the low pressure systems follow the jet stream up and over the high pressure system, which is why we are seeing lots of tornadoes in the U.S. midwest right now.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-84.37,37.02,401
It has rained so much in Oklahoma and environs that we are experiencing very high floods. I live outside a city of about 35,000 and we are keeping our fingers crossed that the water doesn’t come up high enough to cause the water pumps to have to be shut down. We are within a foot or two of that happening, but happily, the rain has been much less in the last few days as the main focus of the systems seems to be moving west and north of Oklahoma presumably because the high pressure system in the southeast is pushing the jet stream that way.
In Oklahoma during the summer we usually get a big high pressure system that shows up and sits on top of us for weeks to months and causes it to get very hot and dry around here. That’s what I’m looking for now. Not looking forward to it, but looking for it because that is normal weather around here.
We got a little bit too much rain over a small area but around here it’s always good to get that rain because it usually gets hot and dry during the summer so having a lot of moisture in the soil is a great benefit.
Most of the tornadoes this year have been relatively weak, although there was one that was an EF3. Of course, if a tornado hits your house, even a weak one means a very bad day.
I’m repeating myself here…It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpga49bbnn7q062/It%27s%20not%20the%20heat….pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/977s7lubzne8tho/The%20Solar%20Cycle%20is%20responsible%20for%20extreme%20weather%20and%20Climate%20change.pdf?dl=0
With cooler North Atlantic SST’s, total hurricane (cyclone) energy should increase due to the higher lattitudinal temperature gradient. It is the trmperature gradient that drives the engines of weather.
Of course the increase in hurricane intensity, caused by cooling, will be blamed on warming.
Corn and soybean planting is seriously behind schedule this year, in the USA. From Successful Farming magazine 5/20/19:
“U.S. corn farmers have the most corn acres left to plant, on this date, than they have ever had and remain behind the trade’s expectations, as well.
In its Crop Progress Report Monday, the USDA pegged U.S. corn planting at 49% complete, behind the 80% five-year average.
In its report, the USDA pegged the U.S. soybean planting completion rate at 19% vs. a 47% five-year average.
In its report, the USDA pegged the U.S. winter wheat crop as 66% good/excellent vs. a 64% five-year average.”
https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/us-corn-planting-is-waaaaaaaaaaaaay-behind-usda-says