Omaha (DTN) – What a season the crop year 2012 has turned into. A season which began with bright hopes for good production, which were bolstered by rapid planting progress, has instead turned into a nightmare of disastrously hot and dry conditions. The Drought of 2012 has carved itself a huge niche in history--alongside the droughts of 1988, the mid-1950s, and the mid-1930s.
The scope of this drought is mind-boggling. As of July 19, about 80 percent of the U.S. was experiencing some form of drought conditions. This was a stunning reversal of fortune from just a few months earlier, when it looked like corn growers were going to have an historically large harvest and drought was limited to the southern tier of the country. Scientists trace the drought's origins to a combination of factors, ranging from La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which tend to favor drought in the U.S., to a very mild winter that left little snowpack to help keep soils moist in the spring. Massive heat waves brought blistering heat during March, June and July, turbo-charging the process of evaporating water out of soils and plants, and leading to what meteorologists call a "flash drought." Rather than develop gradually, as is more typical with drought conditions, this drought came on with stunning swiftness.
What's more, almost the entire weather and climate community expects this dry and hot pattern to linger not only through August, but also well into the fall season--at least through October. During this time frame, very few areas of the contiguous U.S. are in line for above normal precipitation. Those areas with the good fortune to have more precipitation than average are the southwestern U.S. along with the central Gulf Coast. For the central U.S., widespread above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation are forecast.
It is also questionable whether there will be much if any jet-stream benefit from the development of El Nino in the Pacific Ocean. El Nino conditions are in effect when the equatorial ocean waters between South America and the International Date Line are warmer than average. And, as of late July, most international weather forecast models call for a weak to moderate El Nino to form during the fall season. However, rainfall patterns associated with El Nino are usually confined to the southern tier of states. Probabilities with an El Nino winter are highest for a dry season from the northern Plains through the central Midwest. In other words, it is possible for the hardest-hit drought areas to enter next year, 2013, in a continued drought stage.
As for crops, the damage has been significant. USDA's World Ag Outlook Board projected the U.S. corn crop to post a yield of 166 bushels per acre back in June, with a soybean yield of just under 44 bushels per acre. But in late July, many private estimates had pulled those numbers back to around 135 bushels per acre for corn, with soybeans in a range of 35 to 40 bushels per acre--an 18 percent decline in the corn projection, and a 14 percent drop in the soybean projected yield size.
Contact Bryce Anderson:
Bryce.anderson@telventdtn.com