The Strange Failed El Niņo & the Deepening Drought Disaster
Following two years of cold water in the equatorial Pacific ocean, the next year is almost always a warm, El Niño event. Not this time. A weak surge of warm water along the west coast of the Americas this fall relieved the build up of warm water in the western Pacific then the incipient El Niño failed. Strong tropical atmospheric convection in the Indonesian region, driven by exceptionally high sea surface temperatures there, kept the incipient El Niño from intensifying. Tropical air that rises up in monsoonal rains over Indonesia sinks in the subtropics over the eastern Pacific ocean. This convection cell is one of the processes that creates the east Pacific high, the high pressure area that keeps California dry in the summer. Over the past six months, extraordinarily warm water in the Indian ocean kept the monsoonal convection from moving towards the central Pacific ocean, preventing the development of El Niño. The east Pacific high did not break down despite the brief surge of warm water along the equator. Now the water is cooling and the east Pacific high is reintensifying, strengthening the grip of drought across the southwest and southern plains. The consequences are disastrous.
The U.S. hard red winter wheat crop, which is in the worst condition since the USDA began reporting conditions, was declared a disaster on January 9. And new long range forecasts by the Climate Prediction Center predict the drought to get worse in the southern plains and the southwest. Heavy rains in the Ohio valley have improved conditions there and raised the Mississippi River south of Cairo, but the upper Mississippi River continues to drop towards record low levels which would make the river impassible to commerce.
"Wheat growers in the Southern Plains have known the effects of a drought for about 120 consecutive weeks, and now their neighbors to the north have been added to the drought disaster list. Nearly 600 US counties—20% of them—have been declared disaster areas in the first such USDA designation in 2013. Drought and heat, an environment unsatisfactory for the development of the hard red winter wheat crop, have seriously threatened the vitality of the crop."
Wheat prices are rising on the expectation that the worst winter wheat crop since 1985 (for the end of November) is going to further deteriorate.
"No significant precipitation is expected in the U.S. Great Plains in the next 10 days, forecaster DTN said in a report yesterday. Northern and eastern areas of the region may be very cold, and temperatures in wheat-growing areas in the northern Midwest may near zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius), according to the report. The U.S. winter-wheat crop was in the worst condition since 1985 as of the end of November after dry weather, Department of Agriculture data show."
And newly released forecasts by the Climate Prediction Center predict worsening drought in the west and the plains. The east Pacific high, the subtropical high pressure area offshore of California is strengthening. Cooling waters in the east equatorial Pacific ocean support continued strengthening of the high over the next 90 days. The high will push the storm track north towards the Pacific northwest and southern Alaska, producing dry conditions in the southwest and the plains.
During the upcoming three months, a much drier pattern is expected across the southern third of the Nation (from central California to the eastern Gulf Coast).This limits the prospects for further drought improvements during the latter end of the wet season in California, Nevada, and western Arizona, and in fact increases the probabilities for drought development and deterioration in the tri-State area. This also marks a change from recent wet conditions in the southern Plains and western Gulf Coast as drought development and persistence is forecast for Texas by the end of April. Similarly, drought development and persistence is possible in the eastern Gulf Coast States, but less likely further north. In contrast, enhanced probabilities of surplus precipitation and subnormal temperatures across the northern U.S. (from the northern Rockies eastward to the upper Midwest and into the western Corn Belt) increase the odds for drought improvement. Some improvement is possible across the middle Mississippi Valley and the Piedmont, the latter area from wetness forecast for the rest of the month.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/18/1179915/-The-Strange-Failed-El-Nino-the-Deepening-Drought-Disaster
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