Some of the worst drought conditions in a generation are plaguing America’s breadbasket just as spring planting season gets underway. Institutional desks, including UBS, have ramped up warnings about drought, fertilizer shortages, and what these current-day issues could morph into for the food supply chain later this year.
The good news: parts of the central U.S. may finally see some weather relief, with several days of rain in the forecast. Whether that will be enough to materially improve soil moisture conditions remains the key question for agricultural desks this week.
"The upcoming weather pattern in the United States, fueled by a strong subtropical jet stream, will bring some beneficial rain to the drought-stricken South," meteorologist Ben Noll wrote on X, adding, "But it will be far from a drought-breaker."
The upcoming weather pattern in the United States — fueled by a strong subtropical jet stream — will bring some beneficial rain to the drought-stricken South.But it will be far from a drought-breaker.pic.twitter.com/3Zfhm1KpfT
Noll is correct: it will take many more rounds of storms to fully erase the drought, especially given whatUBS analyst Jonathan Pingletold clients last week.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Palmer Drought Severity Index hit its highest level for Marchsince records started in 1895, and March was the third-driest month recorded, regardless of time of year, behind only the famed1930s Dust Bowl: July and August 1934. Water levels on the Mississippi look fine, and seasonal lows are typically in the fall, but river levels in Memphis sit 24 feet below this time last year.
Here'sThe Weather Channel'sforecast for rain this week across the Midwest and Southeast:
Source: ZeroHedge News
