Southern plains moisture and a world crop weather check

Farm and Ranch December 15, 2011 That drought situation in the U.S. southern plains hard red winter wheat belt helped support wheat prices in late summer and into the fall. More recently though;

Rippey: “We have seen drought easing rains across large parts of the southern plains.”

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey. La Nina normally means hot and dry and in the southern U.S. but Rippey says each La Nina has its own nuances;

Rippey: “And it certainly is not the only atmospheric phenomena going on out there. You play La Nina with some other things going on across the global atmosphere and we have seen a little bit of a displacement of where we expect that wet signal that typically sets up over the Ohio Valley, or somewhere over the eastern cornbelt, and that has brought some much needed relief to southern Kansas, Oklahoma, and even parts of Texas. We are not entirely out of the woods with respect to the drought situation across the south central United States. We have a long way to overcome this historic drought but certainly with more rain moving in this week the signs are there that maybe things won‘t be as bad heading into the spring of 2012 as they were in 2011.”

Elsewhere in the world over the past week USDA says much-needed rain improved soil moisture reserves for winter crops in central and northern Europe. Mild, increasingly wet weather melted much of the protective snow cover in the western Former Soviet Union region. Wheat harvest in eastern Australia continued to be plagued by rain.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.