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JANUARY 7, 2013 • ALBERTAFARMEXPRESS.CA
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Analyst cuts Ukraine rapeseed forecast UkrAgroConsult agriculture consultancy on Sept. 21 revised down its forecast for Ukraine’s 2010 rapeseed harvest to 1.45 million tonnes from the previous outlook of 1.50 million. UkrAgroConsult said severe frosts in January-February and a record drought in July had destroyed about 46 per cent of the winter rapeseed crops sown to the 2010 harvest. The country harvested a total of 1.85 million tonnes of rapeseed in 2009. — Reuters
Planting delay in Brazil The later start of Brazil’s soybean planting in the centre-west could lead to lower yields than last season which saw near-perfect rains, but this was already expected by analysts who held to their forecasts for the 2010-11 output to be unchanged. The influence of La Niña is pushing the start of the rainy season in the country’s main soy-producing region in the centre-west back into October this year, and not in September as usual. “We don’t see a change in planted area because of the late rains,” said Andre Pessoa, director at Agroconsult analysts. — Reuters
A review of global weather stories of 2012 – Part I Early summer } Record-shattering temperatures in
March were one of the biggest stories of the year by daniel bezte
U
sually around this time Environment Canada comes out with its top weather stories in Canada for the past year. While I will do an article on this topic once it is released, I thought for now that I would take a look back at 2012 and summarize some of the major weather stories around the world. Instead of trying to figure out which weather story is No. 1, No. 2, etc., I figured I would simply summarize key global weather events month by month. So let’s begin by looking way back to last January. While it brought unusually warm weather to much of central and eastern North America, most of Europe and Russia experienced well-below-average
temperatures. In fact, the cold temperatures in Europe during January 2012 were estimated to have killed over 58 people due to exposure. These cold temperatures were not only confined to Europe and Russia, but they literally spilled over into Alaska, bringing what turned out to be one of the coldest Januarys on record for this region. According to the Fairbanks weather office, several locations in Alaska set all-time records for the coldest January on record including Nome, Galena, and Bettles. Kotzebue recorded its second-coldest January ever, while Fairbanks recorded its fifth-coldest January on record in 2012. Moving on to February, the top global weather story was a little difficult to determine. The cold weather continued across Europe and Alaska with 200
This map shows the dramatic departure from normal (°F) as a result of record cold in Alaska in January.
people estimated to have died across Europe from the cold. Over most of North America the big story was the lack of snow cover and warm temperatures. I think the major weather story for the month was the Category 3 tropical storm Giovanna that hit Madagascar on February 13, bringing five to 10 inches of rain along with wind speeds of 125130 m.p.h. Fortunately, while it still created a large amount of damage, the eye of this storm missed the more heavily populated areas resulting in only 10 reported deaths.
Summer in March
Who can forget last March? The biggest weather story worldwide last March was the “summer in March” heat wave that brought record-shattering temperatures to much of central and eastern North America for several weeks. After an extremely mild winter, temperatures ended up getting downright silly during the middle of the month as
an unusual blocking pattern developed over North America. High temperatures in southern Manitoba and parts of central Manitoba climbed into the upper teens by the middle of the month, with several locations recording temperatures in the low- to mid-20s on March 17 and 18, shattering the previous record highs. Even the lows were amazingly warm, with overnight lows on the 19th actually being higher in some locations than the previously recorded daytime highs! These unusual conditions were also occurring over Eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. The summer-in-March temperatures in these regions resulted in fruit crops coming into early bloom, only to be later damaged by the killing frosts that followed later in the month. Billions of dollars’ worth of fruit crops were lost. That said, it was still an amazing month weather-wise for our part of the world. We’ll end up this article with a look at last April’s
weather. Like February, April didn’t really have any major or dramatic weather events anywhere around the world. Record-warm temperatures continued over North America, but this time they were confined mostly to the western U.S. and southwestern Canada. During April, at least 36 U.S. cities set or tied all-time record-high temperatures for the month. I think the biggest story was actually not really a weather event, but rather, the talk about the possibility of severe drought developing over much of central and eastern North America during the upcoming months due to the warm spring weather and lack of snow cover and early-season rains. Well, I’m nearly out of room, so I’ll continue this article in the upcoming issue(s) in January, but in the next issue we’ll do our usual look back at the previous month and then look ahead to see what the rest of the winter and early spring might have in store for us.