Milling & Baking News - June 14, 2022 - 28

TUES | 06 14 2022
Canada Prairies drought set to
break; Central US to dry down
BY DREW LERNER
KANSAS CITY - A much-needed change
in weather patterns is impending across
North America in the next few weeks. The
changes will include a wetter weather pattern
in Canada's Prairies where drought
has been ongoing in some areas for five
years. The change not only will bring rain
to the Prairies, but it will bring moisture
to the northwestern US while forcing the
Plains and western Corn and Soybean
Belt to dry down. The changes will be
closely monitored, but World Weather,
Inc. believes the summer pattern in North
America may be similar to that of 1956.
North America weather has fallen into
snow melt and winter precipitation.
Drought has prevailed during the spring,
and there has been no moisture replenishment
in the soil. As a result, crops have
been developing tenuously. Any lengthy
period of dry and warm weather that rolls
around in the next few weeks without
significant rain falling first may result
in production cuts and possible crop failures.
However, a weather pattern change
is underway that promises to bring new
opportunities for meaningful rain.
Cooler-than-usual ocean water temperatures
off the West Coast of North
America and warmer-than-usual ocean
farther east the ridge of high pressure
tends to be. This year's negative phase of
PDO is quite negative, and there is some
concern that the ridge may impact a larger
part of the western Corn and Soybean
Belt as well as a part of the US Plains. The
positioning of this ridge and its amplitude
will be closely studied over the next few
weeks to determine where the ridge of
high pressure will set up and how much
impact it will have on North America crop
production in 2022.
The significantly negative PDO can
create a southwesterly flow pattern aloft,
bringing storm systems inland from the
a deep rut in the past three years, downplaying
rain across the entire west half
of the continent. The drought impacting
crop areas from Mexico to western Canada
has cut into crop production at times
with production losses in 2021 the sharpest
yet. Some areas in the southwestern
Canada Prairies already had been drying
out in the 2017 through 2019 growing
seasons, and after the serious dryness
of 2021, subsoil moisture was severely
depleted.
Spring planting in the southwestern
Prairies this year jumped out to a quick
start as producers opted to take full
advantage of what little moisture was
available in the topsoil left over from
28 MILLING & BAKING NEWS
water in the north-central Pacific Ocean
represents the negative phase of Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (PDO). When ocean
temperatures are anomalous in this manner
during the Northern Hemisphere
summer season, there tends to be a deep
trough of low pressure either over the
West Coast of North America or very
close to the coast. The significance of this
feature is great enough that it causes a
high-pressure ridge to develop aloft over
central North America. Sometimes the
ridge can get pushed as far to the east as
the eastern Midwest while in other years
the ridge may set up over the Great Plains
or the Rocky Mountain region.
Usually the more negative the PDO, the
eastern Pacific Ocean Basin through the
US Pacific Northwest and then northeast
into Canada's Prairies. This is the pattern
that is expected in 2022, and it is beginning
to set up. Many of the producers
in the southwestern Prairies are quite
frustrated with the poor soil moisture
situation and believe production this
summer will be equally bad or possibly
worse than that of 2021. World Weather,
Inc. believes that will not be the case and
the rain evolving over the next few weeks
eventually will occur frequently and significantly
enough to bolster soil moisture
and induce a significant improvement in
topsoil moisture. The routine occurrence
of rain in the southwestern and central
bakingbusiness.com
WEATHER update
©BATUHAN TOKER - STOCK.ADOBE.COM, WORLD WEATHER AND DROUGHT MONITOR
http://www.bakingbusiness.com
Milling & Baking News - June 14, 2022

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