Hello, listeners.
Speaker AWelcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.
Speaker AAs usual, I'm your host, Jacob Shapiro.
Speaker AI am rejoined on the podcast by our favorite weather guru.
Speaker AHe probably will hate being called a guru, but that's okay.
Speaker AI can call him that.
Speaker AIt's Darrell Richardson.
Speaker AHe is the director of the North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network and also the North Dakota State Climatologist.
Speaker AThank you, Darrell, for coming on.
Speaker AA lovely apolitical talk about the weather here, putting aside all of politics for a second.
Speaker AObviously, we try to be objective on this podcast at all times.
Speaker AHard to make the weather political.
Speaker ASo thank you, Darrell, for coming on and talking about it.
Speaker AIf you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about speaking events, anything else, I have more email addresses than I can count right now, so Jacobacob Shapiro.com probably your best bet for now.
Speaker AOtherwise, take care of the people that you love.
Speaker ACheers and see you out there.
Speaker AAll right.
Speaker AOur favorite weather guru is back on the podcast and I'm thankful for him because he was patient with me because I was a few minutes late as well.
Speaker ADarryl, it's really good to see you.
Speaker AHow's it going?
Speaker BOh, it's going great and it's really nice to be on once again.
Speaker BIt's been a while.
Speaker AIt's been a while.
Speaker AAnd honestly, I have been recording on Tuesday, January 28th.
Speaker AWe'll probably get this out at the beginning of next week.
Speaker AAs you can hear from my voice, which is fading and getting tinnier by the moment, I have been on calls all today about Chinese artificial intelligence and US Columbia relations and US Tariffs on Taiwan.
Speaker AI am really happy to sink into a conversation about something as apolitical as the weather.
Speaker AThis is going to be relaxing to me, so I hope it's relaxing to the listeners, too.
Speaker ADarrell, the first question I wanted to ask you, oftentimes when, when we're talking, you do a good job of sober, sobering me up and saying, hey, like, this thing may seem crazy, but there's a lot of historical context for this.
Speaker AThis has happened before.
Speaker ALike, don't worry about this.
Speaker AWe got a foot of snow in New Orleans last week.
Speaker ADoes that fall in the unprecedented category?
Speaker ABecause I was sitting here watching the snowfall and watching my flights get canceled, and I was wondering, what would Daryl say?
Speaker AWould Darryl say that this is all part of some normal trend in general and this happens every once in a while, or would this shock him to his core?
Speaker BNothing in weather shocks me.
Speaker BNumber one.
Speaker BIt has happened before, as you likely know from your local media has told you about the 1890s event.
Speaker BSome things only happen once every hundred years.
Speaker BSome things only happen every 500 years.
Speaker BI don't necessarily find them unprecedented.
Speaker BYou could use the term rare is what I usually like to describe them.
Speaker BBut it gives people along the Gulf coast something to tell their grandchildren about that big snowstorm of 2025.
Speaker AIt was I.
Speaker ASo I grew up in rural Georgia, which it's more often to have winter weather up there.
Speaker ABut I still remember the Blizzard of 1993.
Speaker AI remember sitting in the.
Speaker AIn the living room and we were building snowmen and all the power went out and things like that.
Speaker ASo maybe that'll be something that people remember.
Speaker ABut I mean, the pictures of the snow, you know, falling a foot deep right up to the beach, like on the sand, I mean, just.
Speaker AJust incredibly wild.
Speaker AAre there any similarities to what happened in the 1890s to now?
Speaker ALike, are there similar patterns or similar things that are happening or both just sort of freak occurrences, I think.
Speaker BI don't like to use the term freak, but it was a very similar pattern.
Speaker BI love history and weather.
Speaker BHistory is usually referenced as climatology, of course, but in many ways, to me, there is a historical aspect of whether that's not so much climatology as it is the stories how humans dealt with such differing things at different times through history.
Speaker BSo I remember reading about that snow event in the 1890s.
Speaker BI think it was 1895, if I remember correctly.
Speaker BAnd then it happened again.
Speaker BAnd so when you understand the past and all these weather events, it's always interesting when they happen, because I'll be the first one to say, oh, I will never probably see that happen.
Speaker BYou know, was that one storm?
Speaker BAnd then when you do get to see it, it's fascinating.
Speaker BIt's like the 1993 storm that you mentioned.
Speaker BI was in my TV days going, you know, this could be a historical event.
Speaker BIt just looks like it's going to be terrible.
Speaker BIt probably won't be as bad as it sounds, but it really looks pretty bad.
Speaker BAnd it was everything you could have ever imagined.
Speaker BThe 93 storm and then some.
Speaker BYou couldn't really overhype that one.
Speaker BAnd in some ways, this event, because where it happened, it was really hard to overhype it too.
Speaker BIt's very unusual.
Speaker BAnd the odds favor it might not happen again until the 2100 sometime.
Speaker AProbably not.
Speaker AAnd this is one case where the forecasts, you know, the forecasts were calling for 4 to 8 inches.
Speaker AAnd I was like, I just have a hard time believing there's going to be 4 to 8 inches.
Speaker AAnd then like it started falling and I was like, this is going to be more than 48 inches.
Speaker ALike, I lived in upstate New York for four years.
Speaker AI've been around snow.
Speaker ALike this is the real deal.
Speaker ASo yeah, just kind of.
Speaker BI would have been Conservative and said 4 to 8 too.
Speaker BAlthough a lot of computer guidance was indicating the foot that you ended up with.
Speaker BBut do you really believe that when it hasn't happened in 125 years.
Speaker BBut it did well.
Speaker AAnd, and, and I don't know if you saw, like, I don't even think technically the city has official records.
Speaker ALike it's the 1895 storm.
Speaker AThey don't have the official records from it from the city.
Speaker ASo they're just guessing.
Speaker AYes, to your point, based on the reports and stories around the time, like how much it was.
Speaker ASo for all we know it was like six inches.
Speaker ABut at the time they thought it was the, the biggest.
Speaker BYeah, you're right about that.
Speaker BThey really didn't.
Speaker BAnd that' true with a lot of those old records.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAll right.
Speaker AWell, does the, does the snowstorm tell us anything more broadly about what's happening with weather in the entire world or was it really just an isolated circumstance here in the Gulf?
Speaker BI would say that it tells you some things because it happened with scenarios that have happened in the past.
Speaker BAnd as if anyone's listened to previous when I've been on your podcast or any of my public talks, I oftentimes use analogs, which is similar events in the past and those scenarios ended up doing this.
Speaker BWhy would not those similar scenarios end up being here this year?
Speaker BAnd some of the past snow events that have been in the Deep south in the past or even more recently, but just wasn't this bad tended to occur in winters with the upper level wind flow being similar.
Speaker BThat led to dry conditions in the United States that upcoming summer.
Speaker BEven before the storm.
Speaker BI've been forecasting 2025.
Speaker BJust there's a lot of reasons to believe it will be dry in the core of the United States, say between the Rockies and the Appalachians and the growing season in 2025.
Speaker BAnd when something like this happened and when the very few times it's happened, then the fast led to that same scenario, it just in a way increases my confidence.
Speaker AWhat is it dry in the core of the country?
Speaker ADoes it selfishly, does it mean also a weaker hurricane season?
Speaker AI know that we're in a very weak La Nina, although maybe it's going to be out out of the door by the summer.
Speaker ABut I know you also hate it when anybody invokes La Nina.
Speaker ASo why don't I get you started now and you can get on your hobby horse.
Speaker BHey, I.
Speaker BLa Nina has impacts.
Speaker BEl Nino has impacts.
Speaker BIt's the thing that always drives me crazy is it's not the only impact.
Speaker BAnd truth be told, we're still not technically in a La Nina.
Speaker BYou know, there's a definition for it, which I think meteorologists in any discipline you're in will come up with definitions to kind of keep everyone on the straight and narrow.
Speaker BBut by definition, it's.
Speaker BLa Nina is three consecutive months with the average temperature in the Central Pacific at a half a degree Celsius.
Speaker BIf you're a Fahrenheit, dude, just think 1 degree Fahrenheit or colder.
Speaker BWhile December did finish with temperatures below that threshold.
Speaker BBut we have to get through January and February for it to be technically a La Nina.
Speaker BAnd I think that's going to happen.
Speaker BBut for all practical purposes, we can call it a La Nina.
Speaker BIf you're curious.
Speaker BEl Nino is the exact opposite.
Speaker BIt's a half a degree Celsius or warmer for a full three straight months, which easily happened a year ago.
Speaker BSo this is La Nina.
Speaker BIt will very likely fade this spring.
Speaker BAnd the odds favor this upcoming summer being in neutral territory.
Speaker BNeither a La Nina or an El Nino, and I bet we sit in neutral territory for a long time, is my strong suspicion.
Speaker BSo then we're looking at other things.
Speaker BOne of the things would be the Pacific Decado Oscillation, which is a larger scale El Nino La Nina in some ways, if you want to look at it.
Speaker BAnd also the Atlantic Ocean, which has been warm for 30 years, and it's in its positive phase, you know, how long is that going to last?
Speaker BI usually tell people I think it's going to turn negative into 2000s, which will change.
Speaker BEspecially European weather.
Speaker BThat could last in the 2000s, 2000s, it could be 20, 25 years of changes for them.
Speaker BBut it does have some impacts in North America as well.
Speaker ADoes the.
Speaker ADoes the degree of the La Nina or the.
Speaker AOr the El Nino correspond directly to its impacts?
Speaker ALike if the temperature is off higher or lower, does that mean that the impacts in, say, South America are going to be greater or weaker?
Speaker BYes, I matter of fact, in my talks in the last few months, and I was in Florida a couple of weeks ago before it snowed, but I was a frost advisories when I was there.
Speaker BJust classic when I'm In Florida, it's always cold.
Speaker BBut when I was there, I was talking to the National Potato Expo.
Speaker BSo the National Potato Council, the big potato meeting every year, this year was in Orlando, you know, went through.
Speaker BAnd because it was a newer audience, most of these people have never heard me speak before.
Speaker BI wanted to really show them that, okay, you hear the word La Nina and you hear the word La Nina and every time, even NOAA for good or bad, does this.
Speaker BWell, here's the forecast.
Speaker BLa Nina equals this.
Speaker BAnd I always go, a, there's more than volv everyone know than just La Nina.
Speaker BBut I go, they don't seem to a lot of times give you the strength and those correlations.
Speaker BAnd so I went through the United States map and go, okay, with weak La Ninas, this is what happens with stronger La Ninas.
Speaker BNotice it's not the same.
Speaker BAnd so you get different results based on not only the temperatures, but really how kind of widespread that La Nina.
Speaker BWhere's that cold water pool?
Speaker BWhere is it situated?
Speaker BIf it's situated closer to South America, this tends to happen.
Speaker BIf it's situated more in the Central Pacific, you know, Y instead of X may happen.
Speaker BAnd so weak La Ninas oftentimes don't follow the trend that a traditional La Nina would, for example, not to bring back your snow.
Speaker BBut a La Nina, what does a La Nina bring in the southern part of the United States in the winter?
Speaker BWarm and dry.
Speaker BIt has been nothing but that this year for me.
Speaker BIt brings cold and wet.
Speaker BIt hasn't been that way.
Speaker BBut if you go back in history and look at weak La Ninas, this winter has fit that scenario very well.
Speaker AAnd so what does, what does the weak LA into neutral mean for your US Forecast then?
Speaker ASo you already sort of alluded to a drier US Forecast for the core of the country.
Speaker ABut overall, what are you thinking going into the summer and for the rest of the year?
Speaker BWell, if in the last 40 years, 45 years, if you go back to just 1980 to now, where our data is better, it's higher resolution data that we have, there's really been about nine of these scenarios, weak La Ninas in that time frame, and they've all faded in the summer, so they turned into more neutral.
Speaker BBut then you have to go, okay, we also have this negative specific decado oscillation.
Speaker BNot only is it negative, it's kind of fairly strongly negative.
Speaker BSo you throw that scenario in really a very high percentage of those, like seven of the nine.
Speaker BYou'll see, say, the traditional corn and soybean belts.
Speaker BSo that'd be really areas, you know, running southern Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, the I states, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, they had intended to have, and that's very high percentage, 7 of 9, a drier than average summer.
Speaker BAnd so because the PDO is negative and we're coming off a cooling of the Pacific, they didn't necessarily turn out to be like a hot, dry summer, say like 2021 or 2012, which a lot of people remember, or if you're a little older, 1988.
Speaker BBut they were dry with temperatures just, you know, maybe not way above average, but just a little bit, which helps in many ways because every degree is more evaporation, more stress on the crops.
Speaker BBut those years then end up being noticeably drier than average.
Speaker BSo after a good cropping year of 2024, you know, I would say there's reasons to believe that yields will be down in 2025, especially through the ice states and including, say, parts of Wisconsin and as well as southern Minnesota, off into eastern portions of Nebraska.
Speaker ASay, how about for our friends along the Colorado River?
Speaker AIt was actually a pretty Wet sort of 12 months along the Colorado river and in some of these places in California.
Speaker AHard to think about that now with all the devastation that's happened in Los Angeles and in Southern California.
Speaker ABut what do you see there in this country?
Speaker BWell, if you look at my analogs, that area goes through the spring and then has a pretty good monsoon season that would favor at least average, if not a little bit above average.
Speaker BBecause what will happen, if you can imagine the upper level wind flow is, you know, troughs are dips, ridges, you know, move up, bring warm air towards the poles.
Speaker BSo we would have a trough kind of in the Pacific Northwest, a ridge of high pressure between, say, the Rockies and the Appalachians, and then a trough, especially over New England.
Speaker BThat type of pattern would favor bringing in Gulf of California, Pacific and even Golf of Mexico or no Gulf of America moisture into the Southwest and give them at least a reasonably decent, say, monsoon season in the desert Southwest and so in the Colorado Basin.
Speaker BBut although, say, Southern California has been very dry this winter, not unusual for La Ninas, but a lot of times these weak La Ninas, as you get into spring, they will have a couple of storms come through and, you know, they just had one recently that brought some rain, of course, that will bring devastating mud flows and have negative consequences where the fires were, but bring some moisture that they need at the same time.
Speaker BSo again, my analog package, that's what it suggests in those years and of course, you can't really have the entirety of the lower 48 all dry or all wet.
Speaker BIt's this trough and ridge system.
Speaker BAnd if you're going to get the center dry, usually the west coast and the east coast is a little bit more favorable for precipitation.
Speaker AAll right, in deep breath.
Speaker AI've procrastinated asking for long enough.
Speaker AHow's my Atlantic hurricane season looking?
Speaker BBoy, any as long as the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation, now we're talking the Atlantic Ocean, it's in its warm phase.
Speaker BWilliam Gray, the originator, he passed away several years ago of Atlantic hurricane forecasting back, you know, he's the one in the 1990s when the AMO and again, that's the Atlantic Multi, that Cato Oscillation tends to last 30, 40 years in these phases through time that, oh, we're going to have this uptick in Atlantic hurricanes because of this.
Speaker BHe wasn't drawn.
Speaker BWe, we had the uptick.
Speaker BAnd so in turn, the Gulf is warmer than average, the Atlantic's warmer than average.
Speaker BThe fading La Nina helps a little bit because then we might be able to increase shear, you know, and that's upper level winds being stronger, that may suppress them.
Speaker BBut you know, if I lived where you did in the Gulf coast or the east coast, as long as the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation and these are warmer than average, it would always put up at least one antenna that is just going to be keep an eye on.
Speaker BAnd the thing is, even when the hurricane season is weak, we all learned with Andrew in 92, there's really one storm that whole summer and it was, you know, Andrew, it only takes one.
Speaker BBut again, there's just favorability.
Speaker BI think the La Nina fading helps a little bit, but that doesn't mean that nothing's going to happen.
Speaker AYeah, I mean, to your point, one storm in the wrong place can do a lot of damage.
Speaker ABut I'd prefer if Mother Nature had fewer shots on goal, if you will.
Speaker BYeah, this season might have one or two fewer shots on goal, but you know, I think it's going to take till 2000-30s to really settle down the Atlantic Ocean because really globally hurricane numbers are down.
Speaker BYou know, the ace, the accumulated cyclone energy that you measure, all the energy from hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, depending on where you're on the planet, is trending downwards.
Speaker BSo the Pacific and Indian Ocean basins have actually been a little quieter in recent years, say in the last decade.
Speaker BBut the Atlantic has been full throttle.
Speaker BYou know, let's be honest here eventually that will probably flip flop where the Atlantic starts settling down, but then the other basins probably will flare back up.
Speaker BBut I still think we're at least three to five years away from that transition to occur.
Speaker AAll right, well, let me push on that a little bit.
Speaker ASo how long, how long do I have to put up with this Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation?
Speaker ALike, you think it's on its way out in three to five years, 10 to 15?
Speaker AToo hard?
Speaker BI've been saying the2030s for probably 20 years.
Speaker BAnd I stick to it because that's just following the trends through history, because you can use proxy data for it, but you can also just use the Atlantic Ocean in particular, of course, has been widely used since 1492.
Speaker BSo you do get a lot of records, even though they're proxy data and they're not, you know, maybe official and such that the cyclic pattern that you get.
Speaker BSo I would stick to that, that I think you have a few more years before it's going to switch over.
Speaker BAnd if history is our guide, it may actually flip flop pretty quickly.
Speaker AAll right, well, from your lips to God's ears.
Speaker AI want to go back to something you said earlier, which was you said we had a pretty strongly negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Speaker ACan you tell me.
Speaker AYou've already sort of alluded to it, but can you tell me in plain English what that is?
Speaker AAnd then what that means not just for the United States, but from a global perspective, Like, I understand sort of what La Nina is supposed to translate into, but what does a strongly negatively correlated Pacific decadal.
Speaker ADid I say it right?
Speaker APacific Decadal Oscillation correctly?
Speaker BIt's really weird because, you know, they couldn't name them the same, but it's the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and then in the Atlantic Ocean, it's the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation.
Speaker BSo it's the AMO and the Atlantic PDO in the Pacific.
Speaker BSo really this in many ways came about because of salmon fishing.
Speaker BThey would go, wow, you know, salmon fishery, say in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and then Canada up through Alaska, that, you know, salmon fishing would be really good.
Speaker BGood numbers, good catches, life was good.
Speaker BAnd then all of a sudden, for like 10, 12 years, it just was awful.
Speaker BWhere did all the salmon go?
Speaker BWhat's going on?
Speaker BWell, it was the ocean temperatures.
Speaker BAnd so what would happen?
Speaker BAnd what happens is the west coast of the United States up into Canada, the ocean temperatures fall, so become colder.
Speaker BAnd that's the Cool phase or the negative phase.
Speaker BAt the same time, the Northwest Pacific, say northeast of Japan, between Japan and the Aleutian Islands, that area will actually warm up.
Speaker BAnd then when we use flip flop, the positive, then the Northwest Pacific turns colder than average, but the west coast of the United States turn warmer.
Speaker BAnd generally speaking, the Pacific, that Cato Oscillation has been negative for the last 15 years.
Speaker BThat colder air will have a tendency to form ridges of high pressure a lot of times over the Atlantic, I'm sorry, over the Rocky Mountains, which in turn brings northwest.
Speaker BThe upper level winds come from the northwest over say the central part of the United States and northwest flow, you can't tap into the Gulf of Mexico moisture as much and it tends to be dry.
Speaker BSo I like to refer to the negative PDO as a dry flavor.
Speaker BYou know, just 10, not every year.
Speaker BBut if you look at all the records, you will get to the point where, you know, probably when the PDO is negative, a lot of folks will only be wet, maybe one out of three years average or below the other years.
Speaker BAnd if you think about it, since say 2020, a lot of the central part of the United States, again between the two mountain ranges have been a little on the dry side.
Speaker BThere's been spots that have been wet, no doubt, but the overall trend has been, you know, a dry flavor.
Speaker BSay where I am in Fargo, North Dakota talking, you know, we've had five years in a row of below average precipitation and all five years the PDO has been negative.
Speaker BLast time we really had a wet year was a year where the PDO happened to switch positive instead of negative.
Speaker BI don't find that be a coincidence.
Speaker AWhat does a negative PDO mean for, for Asian countries, if anything, does it affect them in the same way that it affects the United States?
Speaker BIt does in the sense of negative PDO tends to translate into more La Ninas and La Ninas because the waters are a little bit cooler.
Speaker BYou know, La Ninas tend to be the wet years and the good crop years.
Speaker BIn Australia, for example, you know, their forecast wheat production here as they're harvesting wheat is up.
Speaker BI think, as I think the last I'd read, maybe as much as 25%.
Speaker BWell, guess what?
Speaker BLast year was El Nino bad, this year La Nina good.
Speaker BNo surprise on that.
Speaker BSoutheast Asia tends to do that.
Speaker BBut it does tend to also suppress a little bit the number of typhoons.
Speaker BAnd you've noticed Asia hasn't had a lot of typhoons in the last several years.
Speaker BAgain, it only takes one and they've had a couple bad ones, but generally speaking, there's not been a lot of them.
Speaker BSo that's how the Pacific Ocean influences both.
Speaker BBoth sides.
Speaker BYou know, it's by far the largest basin.
Speaker BYou know, the Pacific Ocean is 38% of the planet, if I recall correctly.
Speaker BSo it does have impacts.
Speaker BThe one place the impacts are not really there would be, say, Europe and certainly some parts of Africa as well.
Speaker BBut Asia, East Asia for sure.
Speaker BNorth and South America for sure.
Speaker AAt least anecdotally, there have been reports out of Argentina about concerns about dryness and concerns about the early crop in Argentina and places in Brazil.
Speaker AObviously, they're probably still, you know, PTSD from the triple dip La Nina that.
Speaker AThat caused such damage there.
Speaker AIn general.
Speaker ADo you think that it's more about that ptsd, or are you.
Speaker AAre you showing that this week La Nina maybe is going to follow through for our friends down in Argentina and in Brazil?
Speaker BWell, there's two certainties in my world when there's La Ninas, and it's not.
Speaker BThere's no such thing as 100% in my business.
Speaker BAnd as yours, less and less.
Speaker BIf there's anything that I would actually put a few dollars on the table for, it's Argentina being dry with a La Nina of any flavor, weak, moderate, strong, and Australia having a good year and getting some moisture with La Ninas, too.
Speaker BYou know, recently you get north of that little dry area, it's been phenomenally wet.
Speaker BSo, you know, Mato Grosso starting to harvest their soybeans way behind one of the slowest harvests they've had so far.
Speaker BAnd they're always the first ones to go.
Speaker BAnd even some areas that were a little dry for a while has been getting some rain, which I think is going to continue through the first half of February.
Speaker BBut then there's a sharp boundary, which you described, where it looks like it's going to stay dry.
Speaker BAnd probably not every single spot in Argentina.
Speaker BIt's a huge growing area, but generally speaking, you know, average, or certainly many areas below average, the rest of their cropping year, as they get into their harvest and stuff, is probably going to continue.
Speaker BAnd this is the time of year in Argentina, of course, there, you know, depends on where then when they planted them.
Speaker BBut, you know, flowering, it's a more critical time as you move south into those areas.
Speaker BSo I would anticipate some droppage of yield potential in Argentina would not surprise me at all.
Speaker AMm.
Speaker AThis is a totally separate and random question aside, is there a place where you can actually Bet on weather.
Speaker AFeel like you can bet on everything else in the world right now.
Speaker ALike, is there a weather exchange where you can bet on dryness in Argentina or number of storms or things called the markets?
Speaker AAre there markets?
Speaker AWell, no, besides the markets.
Speaker AI mean, like, I made it as.
Speaker BA joke because that's really like a weather market because every time, you know, something happens, prices change.
Speaker BBut I, I don't know anymore.
Speaker BIt's not in an area I watch.
Speaker BBut I know in the past you could do betting in Las Vegas on weather, but I don't know if you still can any place.
Speaker BBut I always joke because you have.
Speaker ATo predict it with the election results.
Speaker AAnd I had somebody on X who was showing me like, oh, what odds on what the next pandemic disease is going to be really grim.
Speaker ASo I was, we should get all the weather guys together and see if you guys are on an exchange, if you can call the shots better than the rest of the gamblers.
Speaker AWell, let's get to maybe the most, the most geopolitical weather question that I can ask you.
Speaker AWhat's the winter going to be like in, in Europe and especially in Eastern Europe?
Speaker AAre we looking at a colder winter?
Speaker AIs Vladimir or Vladimir Putin's hopes for a cold winter to hurt Europe going to be thwarted yet again?
Speaker AWhat are we seeing?
Speaker BAll indications are that as they finish the rest of their winter, it's going to be, I think worst case scenario is average.
Speaker BAnd it still looks pretty warm to me.
Speaker BMoving forward in time, I do know the latest long range, both the European model and the Americans run a couple times a week.
Speaker BGuidance out to 45 days, month and a half.
Speaker BBoth of them are indicating that 45 day stretch to be generally not every single day, but overall, the average being above average.
Speaker BAnd once you get beyond that, we're almost, you know, into middle March later.
Speaker BIt only can get so cold that time of year.
Speaker BSo I think Mr.
Speaker BPutin's probably going to be disappointed when the AMO switches in the 30s, then it's going to be the opposite.
Speaker BMore cold winters are average or below.
Speaker BBut in the last 20, you know, this whole decade, the whole century, I should say there's been very few really cold European winters.
Speaker BBut that's pretty typical when the AMO is positive.
Speaker BAll that warm water, you know, you're 2 or 3 degrees Celsius above average water surrounding you to the west, northwest of Europe, it's just going to be, you know, generally gives you an extra couple degrees Celsius and that is a lot less heat that you need to warm those houses up.
Speaker AToo bad he didn't consult his weather.
Speaker ARasputin.
Speaker AIs there at least an unintended positive of of better growing temperatures and conditions in the Black Sea basin and for Russia itself?
Speaker AIs that the flip side of the warmer temperatures or no relief?
Speaker BNo, it's been bad because it's been dry with the warm weather.
Speaker BI've read this from multiple sources that the winter wheat grown went into winter in some of the worst conditions ever, especially in the Russia more than the Ukraine area.
Speaker BRussia does both ways and this warm dry weather.
Speaker BAnd then if it warms up too much, the wheat will try to head too early, which in turn could be damaged if they get a late season cold snap, which oftentimes happens.
Speaker BYou know, it happens in North America.
Speaker BIt happens for them too.
Speaker BYou have warm for a couple of months, it always comes back to haunt you.
Speaker BThen in the spring you might as well have went cold when you want it in the winter time.
Speaker BSo I think Russia is not going to have a great winter wheat crop.
Speaker BWe'll see what spring wheat does for that season coming up.
Speaker BBut the winter wheat, really, from multiple sources and just looking at the weather and a few people in that area that I follow on X, it just looks bad.
Speaker BAnd warm winters with winter wheat when it comes into the season, bad, just not a net positive on all of that.
Speaker BSo in turn, they might end their record breaking exporting seasons for Russia, which will hurt Mr.
Speaker BPutin and all of that.
Speaker BSo that's the net negative of the warm winter in Europe translating into not the best winter wheat crop.
Speaker BBut again, Russia grows quite a bit of spring wheat too, so there's always that hope coming forward.
Speaker BBut it looks like their winter wheat is going to be pretty poor.
Speaker ASounds like you're giving a rather pessimistic forecast for most of the growing regions of the world.
Speaker AI mean, it sounds like Australia gets a reprieve, but am I right in that you're basically saying that for the next couple of months not going to be ideal for just about any portion of the world?
Speaker BYeah, Australia is looking good.
Speaker BYou know, South America was looking great.
Speaker BAnd I know no one has to believe me when I say this stuff, but it's hard not to say it.
Speaker BBut for the last month I've been saying, oh, you know, South America looks great.
Speaker BAnd I go, wait till harvest season, wait till harvest season.
Speaker BAnd last week someone in the markets was speaking after I was speaking and said, geez, Daryl, I thought you were just saying that.
Speaker BAnd I go, no, I wasn't just saying that, she goes, well, yeah, look, all this bad stuff that's happening, so, yeah, and then we'll have to see in the United States, I bet we get off to a good start this spring, but hopefully it's not too dry.
Speaker BBut I think there's reasons to believe the markets will be moving a little bit more as we go through the next couple of months because the weather's not necessarily behaving.
Speaker BBut, you know, in my business, and I've been saying this for a long time, you know, we've had a series of some really good growing weather around the world.
Speaker BYou just can't, you know, you don't need to be a meteorologist to know that.
Speaker BThat just not the way the weather works.
Speaker BYou're going to eventually run into a tough year here or there.
Speaker BThat's just the part of growing crops.
Speaker BAnd so it looks bad right now, but doesn't mean it's, you know, going to continue for two or three seasons in a row.
Speaker BBut in the short term, like you said, yeah, there's a lot of negatives out there.
Speaker AOkay, so we hit La Nina, we hit the Atlantic multi decadal, we hit the Pacific decadal.
Speaker AWhat are some other ones that we should have in our minds?
Speaker ALike if we're going to stack on, if we're going to be overachievers here and say, all right, we're not going to stop at La Nina and we're not going to stop at the decadal ones.
Speaker ALike, what are some other major forces that people should be keeping in mind when they're trying to place the weather for the year in context?
Speaker BOh, perhaps the Indian Ocean dipole would be one that most people have never heard of.
Speaker BIt's the iodine right now.
Speaker BYou know, it's in its negative phase.
Speaker BWhen it's in its negative phase, think of it as a big giant circulation pattern.
Speaker BAnd any circular, nobody can see me do this, but I'll do it for you.
Speaker BYou know, it's like a big giant circle.
Speaker BYou have part of it going up.
Speaker BAn upward motion in the atmosphere is clouds, precipitation.
Speaker BOkay, Downward sinking motion coming down.
Speaker BOn the other side of this dipole is warm, dry weather.
Speaker BAnd so when the Indian Ocean, this dipole is negative that upward, it happens to be Australia.
Speaker BSo Australia has La Nina helping them, plus the iod, this, that.
Speaker BBut these are two positive things for Australia going on right now.
Speaker BAnd then, so all of Indonesia, all the islands, through their far southeastern sections of of Asia would bring a little bit of moisture, but it's their dry season, of course, with their monsoon.
Speaker BBut as you go westward into, say, Pakistan, eastern parts of Africa and stuff, that would be hot, dry weather.
Speaker BWould that carry forward and impact the upcoming monsoon season that's coming here in the next few months?
Speaker BWill it delay the monsoon season until India?
Speaker BIf it sticks to what it's doing right now, it probably would.
Speaker BAnd I don't have to tell anyone from this podcast how, how much dependent, you know, India is on the monsoon season.
Speaker AWell, in particularly bad timing, especially as the Indian government seems like it's starting to gear up for agricultural reforms.
Speaker A2.0.
Speaker AIt lost the first fight with the farmers, but now it seems to be gearing up for 2.0.
Speaker AAlready gotten reports of, you know, tractor protests starting to, to go up again.
Speaker AMan, if you added a delay to the, a significant delay to the monsoon season there, things could get pretty dicey in Indian agriculture.
Speaker BAnd so I'm not saying there's going to be a delay, but you asked me what else to watch out for.
Speaker BThat's one I would watch out for.
Speaker BBecause what it's situating right now would lead you to believe there might be a delay.
Speaker BAnd so the geopolitics involved, plus that delay could be something very newsworthy as we go through the next few months.
Speaker BSo it's something to watch.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnything else besides the Indian dipole, or is that the last one on your bingo card?
Speaker BFor now, I don't know if I can give all of your people any more.
Speaker BYou know, we went through, you know, I could, you know, the El Nino, La Nino, that oscillation is called enso.
Speaker BEnso, El Nino, Southern Oscillation.
Speaker BSo I gave you, then, so there's enso, the aml, the pdo, I gave you the iod.
Speaker BYou know, do you, do you want me to talk about the Madden Julian Oscillation, which is a good forecasting tool for the next four to six weeks?
Speaker BSo I'm just throwing all these three letter things at people.
Speaker AWell, how about this?
Speaker AHow about I, I'll get you out of here on this question.
Speaker AI know it's, it's gonna, it's gonna make you want to tear your hair out.
Speaker ABut what is, and it's okay, we won't like hold you to it, but what is your most high conviction out there prediction for the year ahead?
Speaker BThe thing I probably the most confident in is the dry forecast in the United States and, you know, a year.
Speaker AAgo in the Midwest.
Speaker BA year ago in my 23, 24 talks, La Nina is coming and Agricultural circles, especially in the United States, a La Nina forecast, everyone thinks drought mainly because of what happened in the late 80s.
Speaker BAnd that's still.
Speaker BAnd I go, no, there's more to it than that.
Speaker BSo a year ago, when people asked me, wow, we're gonna have this big drought in the United States in 24, because this LA Nina is coming, And I go, I really don't think so.
Speaker BA, there's not going to be a La Nina.
Speaker BIt's going to take forever to form and all of that.
Speaker BBut I go, I'll give you a drought in 2025, but I'm not going to give you a drought in 2024.
Speaker BWell, so far that worked out and I probably just jinxed myself.
Speaker BBut I just.
Speaker BThere's a lot of reasons.
Speaker BI mean, we have, if you do that, amo all by itself has a dry flavor in the core of the United States.
Speaker BThe key, you know, main growing areas, the pdo in the summertime, when it's negative.
Speaker BSo a positive AMO tends just that alone.
Speaker BIf you just plot that dry in the, in the center part of the United States, if you just plot the PDO all by itself, years with a pdo, especially when it's strongly negative, it tended to be dry.
Speaker BOkay, Summers, after a week, La Nina, a high percentage of those are dry.
Speaker BAnd there's a couple of other things out there that also.
Speaker BSo there's a lot of these things add up that that's just say there's a strong indication that it'll be dry.
Speaker BThe weather does what it does.
Speaker BIt snows in New Orleans afoot once every 100 years, you know, so there's no guarantees in the business.
Speaker BI'm just here saying that in the United States, there's a lot of indicators pointing towards a drier than average summer in 2025.
Speaker BAnd that's why that area probably around the world right now have the most confidence in, in that forecast.
Speaker ADo you feel like markets have priced that in or do you feel like you're pushing against the grain here?
Speaker BWell, the markets have been really slow, but I've been getting a lot of phone calls in the last week going, hey, Daryl, I heard so and so talk say I was going to be dry this summer.
Speaker BOh, I heard so and so talk.
Speaker BThey're saying a dry summer.
Speaker BAnd every time someone calls me about that, I will go, oh, I see, they're copying my forecast.
Speaker BThat makes me feel better.
Speaker BYou know, it's just a joke.
Speaker BI don't really want, you know, to say anything about this other ag forecaster, you know, in that sense of the word.
Speaker BBut I'm not the only one that's saying it.
Speaker BAnd so I'll be curious.
Speaker BThe thing is, it's going to be if it's, if we get out and plant in the spring, there is moisture there to get your crop going.
Speaker BAnd so that's a positive.
Speaker BAnd if we can get the crop going, then everyone's going to go, oh, this many acres of soybeans, this many acres of corn, it's not going to really affect the markets all that much.
Speaker BIt's really going to take, oh, my goodness, we've gone like five weeks now without very many thunderstorms and there's a lot of stress on the crops.
Speaker BSo it's one of the things to me, the markets may not, if my forecast is right, there might not be very many changes in the market until the middle of summer when there's really more evidence of that.
Speaker BAnd also, you know, Brazil raises so much, but the rain that's occurring in Mato Rosso right now is really threatening them getting their safrin, a corn crop, that second corn crop in, because it has to get in time before their dry season comes, which would lower those yields as well.
Speaker BAnd they're putting in some very wet soybeans into their bins right now because of the rain for that first harvest.
Speaker BSo, you know, it depends, you know, how you want, how your darts are going to land and what you're wanting to do.
Speaker BBut, you know, if you look at the markets, not much is happening right now.
Speaker BI understand why they need more evidence.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAlthough if what you just talked about with Brazil comes to fruition, that'll have some major implications on US China relations, especially as the Trump administration goes in, goes in there and starts talking about Chinese purchases of soybeans and corn and from where, because it hasn't been from the US farmer, at least when it comes to soybeans.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BAnd that's, as you know better than me, predicting Trump makes weather forecasting seem easy.
Speaker AWell, you've got the Trumpian Multi Decadal Oscillation combined with.
Speaker AI don't know, I'd have to come up with something.
Speaker BNo, you should coin that one.
Speaker BI like that personally.
Speaker AYeah, I will.
Speaker AIt's warm in the Gulf.
Speaker AErgo, Trump will decide tariffs on Colombia.
Speaker AIt today.
Speaker AThat's.
Speaker AThat's about as good as anybody else has.
Speaker AI think that's about it there.
Speaker AAnything else you want to say to the listeners before we say bye?
Speaker BNo, just.
Speaker BThanks for having me on it's always a pleasure and it's always fun going around the world and seeing what's happening weather wise.
Speaker BSo I appreciate you having me on and giving me that opportunity.
Speaker AOf course.
Speaker AWe'll look forward to talking to you soon.
Speaker AThank you so much for listening to the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.
Speaker AThe show is produced and edited by Jacob Smulian and it's in many ways the Jacob Show.
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Speaker AIf you're interested in learning more about hiring me to speak at your event, or if you want to learn more about the wealth management services that I offer through bespoke or cognitive investments, you can find more information@jacobshapiro.com you can also write to me directly@jacobacobshapiro.com I'm also on on X for now at the handle Jacob Shapp.
Speaker AThat's Jacob Shap.
Speaker ANo dats, dashes or anything else, but I'm not hard to find.
Speaker ASee you out there.