Interview with weather forecaster

silverharp

I'd be interested if you think any of this is bogus, she writes for an investment newslwtter in th US, but it is interesting




Other Voices: Evelyn Browning-Garriss, Editor of Browning Newsletter

JIM: Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that weather conditions have been changed abruptly here. Here in Southern California it’s probably the warmest Summer that I’ve seen on record since I moved here in 1982; the Midwest is warm. In fact all over the United States we’re experiencing warm weather conditions, as well as other parts of the world. Joining me on the program is Evelyn Garriss of the Browning Newsletter. And Evelyn, your latest publication starts with the headline: Heat, Monsoons and Stormy Weather. What’s going on?

EVELYN GARRISS: Well, among other things, we have been seeing a worldwide phenomenon where the monsoons which we usually think of just in terms of India, but are actually a global phenomenon, this year have come further North than normal. And since the area South of the monsoons are tropical heat, when the monsoons come further North they bring the heat with them – and so that’s what you’ve been seeing. Welcome to monsoon season. [44:20]

JIM: Evelyn, there’s another phenomenon that has changed. I periodically fly to Vancouver, just about every other month, and usually when I’m going North, I’m going against headwinds and it takes me longer to get to Vancouver; on the way back, I’ve got tailwinds. This last trip, just a couple of weeks ago, it was just the reverse – we were getting tailwinds going up to Vancouver and headwinds on the way back. It seems like the jet stream has also changed.

EVELYN: What we’re seeing is a great shift in a lot of the global wind patterns where the high pressure zones are, where the low pressure zones are. So one of the things we’re having is a pressure so the normal wind patterns are not available for pilots to count on this year. It is different enough that the Bermuda High on the East coast is in a position that would normally steer hurricanes and tropical storms more towards the East coast. We don’t have quite as bad a line-up here in the West, but what you are seeing is the winds from Vancouver blowing in a different direction than you’re used to. [45:28]

JIM: How has this affected because we’re seeing not only just warm temperatures in the Southwest, California, even as far North as Vancouver, but we’re also seeing it across the United States?

EVELYN: One of the things that we’re seeing is the prevailing Westerlies take the desert heat West, where it gets to combine with the humidity of the Gulf coast and then gets carried in to the East, so they have the worst of both worlds. They have some of the heat that we’re experiencing here in the West, with the humidity that they normally experience. And it is just wretched conditions – it is killer conditions for a lot of people.

JIM: Let’s talk about some of the implications for that in terms of how this is going to impact the commodity markets, especially the agricultural markets with farming – not only in the Midwest, but also in Canada.

EVELYN: One of the things we’re seeing with our crops is our crops have been going through enormous heat stress. And it’s ironic that just as we have a policy that says let’s switch from foreign oil to domestic corn, we’re seeing weather that makes it a lot harder to grow that corn. We’re seeing heat that causes a lot of the grain products to ripen earlier before they’re at their top quality. Worldwide we have been seeing some bad growing conditions for both corn and wheat. [46:53]

JIM: I was reading a statistic that in terms of our stockpiles of grains globally, they’re at some of their lowest levels that we’ve seen in decades.

EVELYN: Yes, and the implications of that are going to be rather grim for people who live in poorer countries; for Americans it may mean higher food prices, but most Americans can afford that. For some countries, people there can’t afford higher prices and we’ll be seeing a lot of hunger.

JIM: Evelyn, in your newsletter you talk about two volcanic eruptions in Russia and elsewhere, what effect did this have on weather patterns?

EVELYN: With the Russian volcano, it went off in May, and when you get a lot of dust in the air – volcanic dust – it absorbs moisture. So instead of raining out immediately around where the volcano is, it absorbs the moisture where the area is, the winds carry the dust and the moisture in the form of clouds elsewhere, and the weather gets cooler around and under that cloud mass. And then finally it rains out some place else. So the Russian dust was blown into the US and when we had a cold front, that cold air mass with the dust and the cloud cover went very far South. And it went so far South in May, you had a separate low, and you had the low stall. And so you ended up with a lot of moisture being pulled on the East coast. Meanwhile in the West, we had heat wave, after heat wave, after heat wave come and get stalled, so the heat built up in the West. So we’ve started seeing heat build up in the West in May; we saw it build up in June and by the time the monsoon season arrived, it was already hot, and then the monsoon heat arrived and it just became explosively hot here in the West.

The other thing we saw was the volcano in the Caribbean put a lot of dust in the air. And remember as I said the dust absorbs moisture. They’ve already found in studies that sometimes when a lot of the Sahara dust blows into the Atlantic, it stalls the development of tropical storms because the dust absorbs the moisture of the storms. By having a very large volcano go off in the Caribbean, you have a lot of dust there and it has been absorbing the moisture. By this time last year, we had six tropical storms; we’ve had 3 this year. And notice when Chris was a tropical storm, as soon as it started getting near the Caribbean it dropped back into a tropical depression. We have seen the dust from Soufriere Hills in Montserrat absorbing moisture and calming down the tropical storm season. The Atlantic waters are very warm but that dust has made it a lot calmer in the Gulf and the Caribbean, which is great news for our oil producers. [49:59]

JIM: How does this play out going forward, let’s say in the Fall and Winter, given the abrupt change in weather patterns this Summer? Are we looking at a different weather pattern this Winter?

EVELYN: We don’t know for sure. The patterns that we’re looking at, I wouldn’t be surprised if the monsoon which has come so far North lingers longer which is certainly going to warm the West for a longer period of time. I would not be surprised if we see a very cool Autumn around the Great Lakes, and a lot of moisture around the Eastern corn belt, which is not good news for their harvest. For Winter, most of the stuff that I’ve seen, seems to indicate that there’ll probably be a warmer Winter than normal. I’m still trying to do the research on that, but at this point it looks like a warmer, dryer Winter from the interior of the country, and then the coastlines should be wetter than normal this Autumn. [51:00]

JIM: Well, that’s welcome news for us here in Southern California where it is a rare day that you get 3 or 4 days of rain in the middle of July, which is what we got.

EVELYN: Well, what you normally have is June gloom, and it seems like now you’re getting it in August – it’s not following its normal schedule.

JIM: Yes, everything is kind of in disarray here, but we’ll take the rain when we can get it. Well, Evelyn, as you look forward here, is there anything our listeners should be aware of in terms of what might happen weather-wise? I know for example with the drought and the heat conditions, that could have a severe impact on our agricultural output this year, especially the corn crop; and then of course, if we change in the Fall, and especially if it can be cooler than normal then that’s going to mean increased energy demand at a time when you’re already looking at $75 oil.

EVELYN: When you start looking at where the commodities – there’s sort of a joke about the commodities in Chicago depend on what the weather is locally – if you start getting an unusually cool Fall, then it means a lot of people are going to be anticipating a cooler Winter, and so you can expect to see a definite [garbled]. The good news is everything I’ve seen indicates while there’s a still a high probability of a busy tropical storm, and hurricane season – although Superhills has calmed down the early stages of it (the volcanic eruption) – I’ve been telling my clients all along, it did not look like we were going to have big hurricanes this year hitting around where the Gulf oil is being produced. It looks like the big storms are going to be more along the East coast. You were saying Californians were going to be glad for the moisture, but I can tell you there’s a lot of people in Massachusetts who are really tired of rain by now, and are not pleased with the prospect of more wet weather all Fall long. So, yes, I think we’re going to be seeing increased difficulty in the grain growing belt, and we’re going to see a lot of people anticipating a cold Winter. I don’t necessarily see a cold Winter, but I do see a lot of people anticipating one, and let’s face it, it’s what investors anticipate that shapes the market. [53:20]