Drought Now, Cold Weather To Come, Grain State Outlook

[Yeager] There's a new way to stay connected and know what's happening with market to market. When you subscribe to Market Insider, one email and a lot of information awaits you, go to market to market.org and subscribe to Market Insider. Welcome in. It's time to talk weather. And who better than Eric Hunt from the University of Nebraska Extension? He's one of our I think, Eric, I get to call you now a regular regular weather analysis from Eric Hunt. How do you think of that?

[Hunt] Hey, I love it.

[Yeager] This is the MToM podcast. Eric has, really embraced, Market Journal. You see it on the shirt there, but, you've also taken in a couple of Market to Market things here lately. What have, we, saw you in Lincoln back in March? I think we've talked about that. Are you still watching the show? Are we doing okay?

[Hunt] Every Saturday morning? Yep. You guys do great. Yeah. I love the guys you bring on for Market Analysis. Okay. Helps me keep tabs on what's going on, get a feel for things in this part of the country.

[Yeager] So we're talking weather today and climate and all sorts of crazy things because that's what we all talk about this time of year. What's the current state of weather and the and let's start with the grain states.

[Hunt] Well, right now things are pretty warm. And we just finished a nice little cold snap earlier in the week. Late last weekend in some places. Had some decent snowfall. But, we're flipping back here. Right. So it's Thursday, we're recording guys. We're going to have record temperatures across, probably good portions of Nebraska tomorrow, maybe parts of western Iowa. Very warm getting into the weekend, you know, pretty much the entire central U.S. And then we should actually start seeing some chances for moisture coming back this next week. So that's good news. The bad news is there really hasn't been much moisture for a lot of places last year, depending on your location, 30 days in cases, this going back to about mid-summer. But I was actually looking at some of the drought statistics this morning. And the state of Illinois is close to 50% severe drought or worse, which is, I would say, more unusual for them than it is for us to be that bad in drought.

[Yeager] What does that mean?

[Hunt] Well, in terms of clearly, I think they probably had some issues with how their season finished out on, you know, corn and soybean, depending on your location, you know, the bulls depend on how much impact that had on your yield. But what concerns me right now for a lot of the Midwest is that we are in drought now. It's harder to break a drought in the cold season now. Illinois breaking drought in the winter is a more feasible possibility than it is for, say, Central West or Nebraska, western South Dakota, where it's just much more difficult to get that good way. Sure. In the winter, there are some good chance of moisture in some areas that are kind of deeply embedded in drought. So that's good. We can at least get some moisture back in the soil. But you don't want to go into the winter short of moisture, because that means you are likely going to start the next season short of moisture, which means that you either need a very wet spring, which is not ideal for a number of reasons. Or b, you just you better not miss a single precipitation event the next growing season. If your spring isn't wet, maybe you have very little margin for error.

[Yeager] That sounds like the ingredient for a little bit of market volatility. Then if there's that hey, this weather thing could be something to watch.

[Hunt] Yes, indeed. Now we've had drought conditions in the fall on a fairly regular basis here in the last five years. So this isn't necessarily that abnormal. I think it's worse in Illinois, Indiana. That is probably been in recent years. It's not as bad in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, the Dakotas is probably a bit in recent years. So but you have to get worse in Illinois is different than it being bad in Nebraska in terms of market volatility.

[Yeager] Well, yeah, I mean, before we started rolling, we were talking about some of the rain, both manmade and natural, that fell and the implications that had let's talk about your, your state in Nebraska there. What's the state of, of the moisture and what happened this year to, to get you to where you're at today?

[Hunt] Yeah. I mean, by and large, we actually had a, I would say a pretty good year. It was the best year for moisture this decade, which is not seen much through 2022, was about the driest year on record in ‘24, actually about average. But we got that through sort of extreme measures. But most places in the state actually had above average precipitation this summer. And there were some, you know, very good rain that yields in places that don't always get them. So I'm talking portions of, central, South, central, maybe southwest Nebraska. I actually had some pretty good rapid yields if you caught the rains at the right time. And, you know, in terms of the fall, we actually, at least across south eastern and most of west central Nebraska actually had some pretty good year for the first time in several years in the fall. So we're in a lot better shape here that I think we had been in some cases. The downside is we did get some dryness late season across northeastern Nebraska. They are now back in drought. Right now we're back at like 50% of the state and drought, which is more than where we were a month ago. Still, compared to last five years, that's still pretty good. But all in all, I mean, I think for rain fed conditions, it was generally a pretty good year. I don't know that some people, some people probably had records, some people not, irrigated yields, I think particularly on corn, I think often were fairly disappointing. I think a lot of that was a reflection of we had some major disease issues this year. Southern rice was horrendous for a lot of farmers. I think it was probably for nobody, not everybody. But I know for a lot of folks, it was the worst year they've ever had for southern rice. This is kind of back to back years worth. But real is the interpretation. And one of the things that we're really trying to solve in extension, it is like, can we actually get better predictability when we actually arrive? Because if we could do that, then we can better help. Pinpoint where it actually is coming in. And then have good management practices on it in terms of getting it quantified, put on to the exact right.

[Yeager] What I have been fascinated is the discussion I've had with farmers just in Iowa, who are not that far apart geographically in places, and how the southern rest impacted them differently. Some will tell you. Oh yeah, we were just way too wet. Some were like, we were wet, but we were fine. We were dry. We weren't far. I mean, there's this variability that doesn't seem to be anything consistent yet. We still believe southern rust goes away from year to year. It doesn't hang around.

[Hunt] Just not over when. Yeah. The plant pathologist that I work with, the rust, it does not overwinter anywhere near here. They'd like to get into northern Mexico. Maybe deep south Texas where we actually live. Winter. You know, our winters are getting warmer on average, but they're still way too cold for Southern Rust, who survived. But it does blow back up in this part of the country every single year. And we just had a very persistent southerly flow at probably the wrong times in recent years. Been coming in right during that week. Vegetated really got to the state. If you don't catch that, you don't just need to plant the right time. It may not be that effective. And I think that was a common complaint. I heard is that the countryside maybe were not as effective because they you were on a bike ride time or because it's more pressure. It's just go break it down the side. Maybe. Was it work but didn't work like you wanted it to.

[Yeager] Right. That's very consistent. What with what I heard. Okay. Speaking of consistency, you and I, when we get together here lately, I'm just going to walk you through your presentation, and we're going to put up some of your slides. Let's start with corn yields. You've got a picture here. This is the expectations again, we don't have government data, so we're relying on FBN, for this data.

[Yeager] And we've also seen some private estimates. By the time you hear this, we will have had some government data. Just not a lot, at least. Yeah. Well, right. We're supposed to have USDA on Friday.

[Hunt] So that's why your data. I'm, I'm actually really curious what some of those numbers look like, because I've been sort of on the many other bandwagon, but I've been sort of thinking that this based on the lack of solar radiation and some other factors this summer, that I would be very, very surprised if the yields were at, well, the certainly the August projections, I thought even the September ones were a little bullish. I still think it's a really good year. I just don't know that we're going to, I'm just curious what they are. But just at the end chart or map again just came off of Twitter. So or rather I guess I call it X now, but take it with a grain of salt. But I think it does show the particularly like the highway 30 corridor from Nebraska into Iowa, getting up into Minnesota, there were a lot of people that said their cornfields were below expectations. Given that some of the most prized ground in the country, my guess is that most of them are showing their yields are below expectations. I would be really surprised if that 188 number actually was verified. Now, granted their expectations, they have been very, very high this year. I don't know what their expectations actually were. So I'm not saying this is reflected what the final numbers will be, but it does show that broadly across north central US that people are saying their their corn yields are disappointing. And that sort of, I think, kind of lines up what we've been hearing from numerous people throughout this region.

[Yeager] And was there any one reason, maybe lack of sun or just the lack of moisture or too much moisture, then no moisture?

[Hunt] I think it was a combination of a lot of things, but the lack of sun, particularly during grain filling, was an issue. So if you look at, so here, it's not a grass producers figure a while back that was showed from like the June through early August, so that basically the entire central U.S was deficient solar radiation. But I also was able to make a graph, using the Iowa and Iowa environmental mesonet using year five data. So like, I think I picked York, Nebraska as an example. And so like during that period from like good July through late July, you know, most days were below average, solar radiation, some days were significantly below average. And solar radiation, that is a the absolute wrong time of year to have that happen. Like that's the peak of, you know, pollination and starting early grain filling. I liken that to trying to train for a marathon with like skipping supper most every day, like you're it's not good nourishment. You don't want to do that.

[Yeager] Excellent reference right there. Love it. Training for a marathon. I'm not a runner, but I know that I've run five.

[Hunt] I don't think skipping dinner is a good idea if you're training on.

[Yeager] And as you've seen me in person, Eric, you can tell I haven't skipped many dinners. We talk about precip. And again, that mention of it was great for a while. Then it stopped. Average. We're going to look at when we put it all together. 2025 is going to look like what when it comes to moisture is there going to be a is that one number going to tell the story?

[Hunt] I think a lot of places are going to be above average. Just because it was so heavy. There were actually there were places in north central, northeastern Nebraska that had more than three annuals worth of precipitation in the summer months. So we think the summer meteorologists are talking June 1st, August 31st. So that's a little different than astronomical. But some places, especially in late June through early August, were very, very wet as well. Between I-80 and I-90. And it's possible some places just flat out had too much moisture. You crops need moisture, but there is absolutely such a thing as too much moisture for plant. If your soils are too waterlogged for a couple of weeks, like your roots are going to have anaerobic conditions, they like oxygen just like we do. If they're not getting it, it's going to put an undue stress on the plant. There are actually parts of Iowa that had their worst yields in like the last 50 years, 1993 when they just had way too much water that summer.

[Yeager] Right. And we had posted a video recently on our market YouTube page of ‘93. And, I was looking through the harvest video and it was the the camera had clearly captured some of the ponding that had happened at that time during the year. And then the comment section started to light up about people were like, yeah, ‘93 was terrible because of this and this, not just because of this and this, but it really left a lasting impact. People haven't forgotten about just how problematic ‘93 could be. Is there still a comparison between the two for you?

[Hunt] Maybe in a couple isolated areas? I mean, ‘93 was a much more prolonged. And the other but the other I would say the key difference though, was we were already relatively wet in the north central U.S going into that summer, and then we just were exceptionally well. These are places in in southern Iowa had 40in of rain in less than three months. We didn't have quite that level of moisture in the summer, but we did have a lot of places where 20-25 inches fell in, say 6 to 8 weeks or something like that, which is excessive. But the fact that or the conditions for the what we had going into the, you know, weights or I'm sorry, early summer were generally average or a lot of cases were dry, like a lot of the Western Corn Belt especially, was fairly dry going into the June.So that moisture, at least initially, was very beneficial. And then it was probably too excessive in some places. But you factor you count that in with the, you know, cloud cover, high humidity, warmer minimum temperatures. There are a lot of factors that were working against having, you know, the optimal type of yields and, you know, the lack of sun, higher humidity. Those are all things that are very, very, very good for Southern rust. Like you could not have actually looked up a better recipe for southern right. Recent parts of Nebraska and Iowa.

[Yeager] The perfect recipe for southern rest. I don't think that's going to be served at Thanksgiving meal anytime soon. Our temperatures. What did our 90 day temperatures have to factor into this year?

[Hunt] That I need a temperature so what we saw this summer was kind of similar. What we've seen in other recent summers where the macro temperatures were not impressive. Matter of fact, they were the cases below long term averages. It was a minimum temperature that were warm. And they were especially high in places like Illinois and Indiana. They're parts of Indiana, in Illinois that were had some of the warmest minimum temperatures on record for the summer months. They were generally above average across the entire region. And those warm minimum temperature or detrimental to properties, particularly for corn, if you get to the wrong time. I don't think we were necessarily setting any records. The suburbs just the persistence of it just being just a little bit warm at night, that's it. Kind of consistent stick of what we've seen in the last decade, couple of decades where we're getting warmer, ocean temperatures are warmer. It's just harder to maintain those cooler nights in the summer that we maybe used to get, even if our average temperatures overall. But look at the presently different mid summertime.

[Yeager] And I'm going to say that continued into September and October. And I'm just going to use Friday nights as an example for high school football. I think I made it all the way to week 8 or 9 before I even needed a jacket. And there were like six weeks where it was just like, you could be in short sleeves and be fine. So, yeah, we not only warm summer, but then, you're not going to say that I have the right name of fall, but, the fall months of September. October.

[Hunt] So. Yeah. No, it was a little cool. We actually were very cool in this region to start September. And then we flipped back over warm. We were generally warm in October. It's okay. So we were record warm early October. And we have seen a lot more of that in recent years. We generally are warmer in September, some cases a lot warmer September than we were 30, 40, 50 years ago. That is another sign that we are seeing you know, things warm up.

[Yeager] We did have a bunch of snow over the weekend. It was crazy to think Montana to Iowa. I even saw weather delays Monday morning because there was still snow on the ground. Moisture at that. That type of moisture in November still goes into the ground. So, yes. Where is our drought monitor? I still see the west is dry. Texas, back over to Florida, Georgia, Alabama. But then it's that Ohio River valley back towards Saint Louis. That's still a problem. What is the area? If I look at the drought monitor that stands out to you most?

[Hunt] Yeah, there is quite a bit of drought across the country. It's like you're saying you kind of see like, you know, drought. Then there's the Great Plains, Western Corn belt regions, not as bad. Central Corn Belt - pretty bad. You'll not as bad like Appalachia than really bad in New England. So it's kind of like you can just kind of see who's been getting moisture for the last 2 or 3 months, I would say in the north central part of the country. The biggest concern I have really is that area from central Illinois to western Ohio. The good news is for that area is I do think there is possibly getting some improvement in the next a couple of weeks with some decent moisture. New England has a pretty good chance of getting some improvement this, this winter. That's good. The West that's really going to depend on you where the storm track is. Given that we are in a La Nina, there's a lot of things that would probably suggest that the Pacific Northwest would do better. I'm sure the southwest, the, in the Texas, the prognosis certainly less good. But we may actually putting you we are going to see some moisture in some of these places here the next couple of weeks. The southwest has seen some improvement. The monsoon was very, very late this year, but it did actually come in. We did get some moisture in parts of Arizona and Colorado and Utah and New Mexico back in August of September. So that did help alleviate drought conditions there. To point, I think I forget the word tropical system was moved there, but there were some places in Arizona, Colorado that had tremendous amounts of rain. And you saw a couple categories that proving the drought monitor in one week, which is relatively unusual. But I would just say that we've seen some of the I would call the southern part of the Midwest to see some improvement in the last month, but we've seen this kind of continue drought conditions and even some degradation. But further toward the north and toward the west, we have seen things go a bit sideways across parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, here in the last month. You know, even this week we did see some additional degradation. Just my home state, I do help write the recommendations for the state of Nebraska every week. And I did, ask the author for more drought and more and more dryness across the state. And I think there's definitely pockets of the state that are flirting with severe drought at this point, again, which is unfortunate, but that's just kind of how things go here.

[Yeager] We talked about the markets a little bit earlier, but when you look at from North Dakota, South Dakota, majority of Nebraska, Kansas into northern Oklahoma out of drought, which means conditions for planting, winter wheat are going to be good. Therefore, the market doesn't see any stress on that crop of the U.S.. So, I mean, that's working against the the wheat market right now.

[Hunt] Oh, sure. Well, the good news for the wheat crop itself, though, is that this is probably especially for parts of southwestern Nebraska, Kansas, northern Iowa. They've had good moisture this fall for the first time in several years. They actually, you know, it will get the crop in. And you my understanding is wheat looks pretty good. So they actually sort of planting winter wheat in parts of the western Panhandle back in early mid September. They planted late September October as you get, a little further toward the east. But there's actually, you know, if you look at the areas where we traditionally grow wheat, the drought conditions really are not bad. And my understanding talking to some of the educators, out West, is that the stand this year looks much better. It has in recent years. So it's off to a good start. And if it gets off to a poor start, it's very, very difficult. Even if you have a good spring to get it back on track. So from work standpoint, that's probably not the best news for getting the wheat prices up. But maybe they'll be something else that will help get those up right.

[Yeager] There's always something there's always hope for, crop failure somewhere to somebody else's, not yours. That's always what's.

[Hunt] One thing that is, I see an increasing issue, particularly in the Southern Plains with winter wheat is week. If we get these really warm stretches in February, early March, you know, the wheat starts coming out of this fertilization and then you get a huge cold snap. It comes in early, they march, it stabs it in that that could be a major issue in Oklahoma. And southern Canada hasn't been as much yet in Nebraska. But, you know, that may be coming.

[Yeager] And we always talk about you kill the wheat. You can kill it like six times or something.

[Hunt] And before it is about, they might add. But I mean they can only stand so much shock for it because this is done and Wheat Street Mosaic virus was a it was a big problem in parts of the panhandle northeast Colorado this year. I mean, if you get a lot of hail around, you know, the pre harvest period, that basically means that if you get that post harvest volunteer wheat to survive, it probably is. If that's what that virus, because that virus is pretty easy. You know, it's basically just kind of present. You spray it, you can get rid of it, but let people see that volunteer there every year is often not infested with that virus. So you often learn the hard way the following spring that you had a field that was infested with that virus. So I think that was a real concern. Conservative parts of this year, people hopefully got out and sprayed that volunteer for. They planted.

[Yeager] What's our outlook for drought then? Here.

[Hunt] Now the outlook is, you know, right now the areas I think is most concerning at least, Courtney CPC would basically be the southern U.S., southern Plains in the southeast. That is a more of a traditional lining. You look to where the southern U.S. is warmer and drier than average. Interestingly, not like they did really show any drought expansion across most of the Midwest. I would generally think that's probably fairly accurate. I mean, I think the historical precedent would suggest that Ohio, Indiana, maybe parts of Illinois would see some improvement going into the winter. That much I can see. I am concerned, though, that parts of Nebraska, maybe the Dakotas, might sneak your way back into drought. I think that is a bit of a concern of mine. We have been relatively dry in the High Plains region in the last month or so, and if we are getting more north northwest flow, that can't bring Alberta clippers. But still, like we saw this past weekend, that's not a great moisture signal for the High Plains region. So we'll have to see.

[Yeager] But there is a potential for some moisture coming soon.

[Hunt] Yes, indeed. So as we move into next week, we should actually especially if you get further toward the east. And I would avoid as we more chances of moisture. But right now it looks like there's a reasonably good system coming from the southwest into the southern plains that should bring start moving toward the north northeast and bring good moisture to Central Plains. Western Corn belt, you'll probably really get moisture from, say, your eastern half of Oklahoma up into Illinois and Indiana. So again, some of the areas that really are most drought stricken right now Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Stan, have a pretty good chance of getting some moisture back out our way. We may get some of the best moisture we've seen in the last month, six weeks, which is good. Ground right now is completely thawed. So if you do get good moisture, that's going to go in. You don't want it to rain in January because it's probably going nowhere. But the ditch and rivers and you let me actually actually cause major flooding issues I do. There's going to be chance of getting some snow in the western half of Nebraska and South Dakota later next week. Certainly some snow in the mountains. Well, which is good for them.

[Yeager] So are we in a La Nina or. You've mentioned it a couple of times. Are we still in a La Nina?

[Hunt] We are absolutely in a La Nina. I mean, it's not a really, really potent La Nina. So it's actually we have seen the easterly winds and the, you know, central the equatorial Pacific, have been somewhat enhanced here for the last couple of months that pushes that cold water. Back toward the west. El Nino, the exact opposite. You basically see that, you know, the relaxing of the winds. So you actually see true westerly winds that pushes that warm water back toward the east. Which basically means you have a lot more surface area on this planet with more water temperatures, you have more potential evaporation. So that's one of the reasons that El Nino, kind of gives you the fever in terms of air temperature. We tend to see, an even elevated, temperature rise compared to what? Or are based around escalated with temperatures around this planet. But El Nino tends to enhance it even more. We also we're currently what we call the negative Indian Ocean dipole. We still have a negative Pacific decadal oscillation. So yeah, there's all sorts of factors are going to have an impact on our overall sensible weather in the coming weeks and months. It's not just La Nina, but in general, when we think about La Nina in the this portion of the country, we think about it being colder, particularly the cold. Is Minnesota off to Nebraska and Iowa, Illinois is a little bit more of a dividing line eastern side. The Midwest tends to be warmer. It tends to be a little bit wetter. So the Eastern Corn Belt has a reasonably good chance of picking up good moisture this winter. And that would be good, especially areas that are dealing with severe and extreme drought. We can get some good moisture the next 2 or 3 months. That means that they are going to be less reliant on getting good spring moisture. We tend to be warmer and drier due to Texas, Oklahoma. So areas that Oklahoma is kind of interesting because some parts of state are doing fine with drought and other places are really pretty bad shape. And one concern I have is if we stay warm and dry down there, they may be really, really bad situation going in the next spring 2011 or in this year in Texas. And Oklahoma really kind of had its origins late 2010, but it got really dry late summer and fall. But certainly, hey, especially though the North Atlantic Oscillation is basically looking at pressure differences between, you know, Iceland and the Azores or Bermuda, you tend to have a stronger low pressure near Iceland, higher pressure near the Azores. Sometimes that relaxes, almost reverses. And when you get a negative North Atlantic oscillation, you tend to have a lot more meridional because you're bringing a lot more air coming from Siberia and Canada down in the U.S. and if we seeing that coupled with polar vortex approaching, that is an indication that we may at times this winter be dealing with a pretty cold condition. So I think there is a reasonable possibility that we will be dealing with more sustained wind this winter and or the country we've had in recent years.

[Yeager] So the cold is coming, is what you're saying?

[Hunt] Yeah. There, there are signals in multiple models right now that suggests that we are probably looking at polar vortex. Right. Coming into play.

[Yeager] Oh, you did not just say that. Did you really?

[Hunt]

I think that…

[Yeager] You did the polar vortex? Really? Come on. Eric.

[Hunt] Yeah.

[Yeager] You're supposed to be friendly to me.

[Hunt] Well, I, I've really, but I like being honest. I like just giving it straight. And right now there are indications. So Judah Cohen, who is one of my former coworkers at, MSR, my environmental research, you know, publishes a blog, Arctic Oscillation Blog, every week. And I was looking at earlier and he uses basically talking about what happens in Siberia, doesn't stay in Siberia or multiple indications that we are likely to see some stretching as we get into post Thanksgiving, early December. And what I'm looking at in terms of like the European weeklies and a couple other projects that show coal basically coming into the West and North central U.S. during this time period. It does remind me, just looking at the projected anomalies. It does remind me of what happened in, say like early 20 or I'm sorry, not really late, fully December of 2013, where we saw basically a huge ridge build up across Alaska. And, you know, you tend to get even if you get a big ridge in the Gulf of Alaska across the, you know, state of Alaska. You tend to get to that corresponding northerly flow coming back down into some portion of the US, which basically means there's a know the gate to the Arctic or open into somewhere east, the Rockies or maybe Rockies and further east. And in that case, we saw a lot of really cold temperatures across the northern high Plains, basically getting into at least the most. The Midwest is pretty cool. During that time. It was definitely very cold here. And we did get some snowfall across this region. We really have been very, very warm in general here in early December in recent years. So this actually, if this does come to fruition, which I think it's certainly possible, this would be a real break for what we've had in recent years. Only December. So I recommendation would be if you didn't use your heavy winter coat this past weekend in the Midwest, you're probably going to want to find it because it may be cold for a while. As we had in early December, and I'm not going to discount the possibility of least areas north of I-70 getting, their first taste of some decent snowfall. And it's a place got some decent snowfall this past weekend, but I think there might be more widespread areas of snow. But I also point out the CPC is also picking up on the signal the 3 to 4 week, their 3 to 4 week outlook and the fact is, showing up relatively probably on a consistent basis in the European weeklies is indication me that something colder is coming. That's going to be a shock versus this was given how warm it generally has been so far this fall. What we're dealing with this weekend. So, post Thanksgiving, watch out for the cold.

[Yeager] But I'm going to say, I think one of our last conversations, or at least one of our conversations here in ‘25, we were there was this, discussion, 20. We all remember 2012 is the drought year. Yeah. There were these whispers that we were going to be dry in this year, and it didn't come to pass. So I'm got I'm going to just hang my hat on that. Maybe that's not 100% right, given what we had, in 2025.

[Hunt] Well, there's always possibility that I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. That that certainly is possible. Yes.

[Yeager] It wouldn't be the first time. And it's. All right. So we've talked about the flashback to 2013 and the winter outlook. You mentioned December or Thanksgiving and December could be cold. Does this continue into January? February?

[Hunt] I think there indications are that mean based on historical precedent, it would certainly seem reasonable that we will have at least cold stretches of time. Doesn't mean going to be cold every single day. And we don't really necessarily have like the really, truly sustained cold as often as we used to. That's just, you know, one of the, aspects of having a warmer planet. But there are a couple of things that make me think that we are probably in for colder temperatures. One being just the lining on average tends to be colder for regions like North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, it can be colder. We are expecting more a more active polar vortex in terms of stretching time also. But they were colder temperatures being in coming into certainly areas east, the Rockies. And if we look at the years where we've had a lot going on with couple with the negative Pacific Oscillation, that also is indication that we tend to be colder than average weeks compared to like last 30 years and of course, of the country. So there are a lot of signals that do show cold being favored in think I. So I have a slide here. It shows the European model's winter outlook. It actually is showing average temperatures for a lot of the north central U.S., maybe just slightly warmer elsewhere. They hardly ever show anything cold in this region. They usually just basically they're there. They have a warm bias in their seasonal outlook, particularly in the winter. The fact that they aren't showing a warm signal. If in the case of me, that they we may have to be relatively cold, they may not have been there may not happen at all. We certainly possible we may continue to see the persistent ridging be in place over the three central U.S, but there are signs that that is going to start changing as we head into, week very into November, really getting into December and causing people to migrate. So we haven't had that much cold weather in December of recent years, but not early December. It may have that this year for the first time, a little while.

[Yeager] So that's the European model. There's two slides I want to focus on here to close analog winter outlook. Tell me what that means.

[Hunt] So the analog winter outlook that's basically what I did was go to the probably go back last 20 years. We've had a one year, comparable strength of this year with a negative Pacific Beetle oscillation, because that also had a relatively big impact on where we tend to see ridges and troughs set up by the Northern Hemisphere, and by and large, that would tend to show that we'd have a bit more troughing over the western central parts into the continent, or to bring colder temperatures, at least on average. And then maybe we just had a couple of really intense cold practices, you know, first with mild weather, but if you look at those in a lot of year, if not the 2010-11, 20-2021, 2021, 22-23, 23 and then last winter, the composite of that was colder than average across most of the central, east and north central US warmer, southeast. Warmer. New England colder, Pacific Northwest. Again, that is largely a signature, but also it goes out from that to as well. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean really robust snowfall for most of us. 21 I'm sorry, 2223 had a ton of snow across portions of northern Nebraska, northern Iowa. I know parts of Minnesota hammered with snowfall that year, but then on on average, we are not getting a hundred tons of snow, in part because when we are in a one year that is a dog trigger, we tend to get more northwesterly flow, which can bring snow, but that tends to be more of the 2 to 4, maybe six snow that's drier with less moisture content. Probably more wind was around more, maybe ground blizzard type positions to get the really intense those storms hit the Midwest. We need what we call southwest flow coming up from California, New Mexico, bringing the Pacific moisture, and then you get low develop off of the Rockies. So they develop in Texas, Texas Panhandle throughout with the Kansas that we will be moving to the city, or we take a more southerly track and we get over the, city like Atlantic, and they produce more users in the northeast. Or maybe some produce closer if they cross up the Midwest. Regardless, you need that southwest flow signature to produce those types of low pressure systems that could produce heavy snowfall, because that means they could really tap into the moisture from the Gulf. The worst case scenario is you get dip dropping in the West that's tied in with a polar vortex stretching or just really deep cold air coming in from northern Canada, where you also get moisture in the Gulf. That means you get the worth of both series, you get the cold and you get the big snow. We saw that for a period of time in 2014, actually. What really was going on with winter is the late 1970s predates my time, but for those of you that are older, they remember those winter being really brutal with snowfall and the cold essentially kind of what we had. We had the combination of the southwest flow with the really, really cold air coming in because of how people applied. The blow was the western U.S. that's not the production this winter, but that's something to watch out for.

[Yeager] Anything making any sense for the spring outlook yet?

[Hunt] Yeah. In terms of the spring wheat. So there is these there are projections that we've made friends that we were likely to transition back into neutral as we head into the spring, which, I would say, all things being equal, good. We leave for the Great Plains. We're thinking about building a in summer, and fall is not going to be our friends from Glacier. So that's, I would say on a balance as good. There also is a chance that we may transition back into El Nino as we head into later summer. And if that happens, we may start seeing where moisture come back in the spring. Now, I would point out that 2022 to 2023, we were wanting to go into neutral. When you told me, and we tend to actually see better way through the summer. When that happens. Some years we do spring, some years we do not. I don't have to remind people that for this region 2023, we were extremely dry, but hardly anything picked up on that. I'm not saying that's going to happen again, but I was pointing out that the last time we did have a transition into an El Nino during a growing season, the spring was a relatively dry one. I thought this region, it was, very, very detrimental to certainly parts of the brass. And I think it probably took people back in other areas as well. Thankfully, we started getting for that summer, but, you know, we don't need a repeat of that again.

[Yeager] But one thing we do need a repeat of you get a repeat of you at some point. Again, Eric.

[Hunt] I look forward to it.

[Yeager] You can see Eric a number of ways. He's on Market Journal, on Saturday mornings, the Crop Watch podcast, and also find some of his work on the Nebraska State Climate Office website. And you don't teach any classes, though, do you?

[Hunt] I actually do teach a class on the side in the fall. Yes I do, I really enjoy the Students are great.

[Yeager] Which, what's the class this fall?

[Hunt] That's a it's an honors class. It's called Living with Our Changing Climate. So essentially I do not have any meteorology or climate background. So I try to teach us the fundamentals of weather and the earth climate and we don't spend a lot of time talking about beliefs or adequacy for more time actually talking about why we're seeing what we're seeing, why we likely to see we're going to see it. We talk about solutions for adaptation mitigations because, you know, realistically, they're the ones they're 20 plus years younger than me. They're going to have to deal with this a different way that I'm going to water it, and I want them to be prepared for it.

[Yeager] Exactly. I have a base of information, as they go to make their decisions.

[Hunt] So 100%.

[Yeager] Eric. Good to see you. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time.

[Hunt] Yep. Thank you so much. Paul.

[Yeager] All right. That's Eric Hunt. You know him from Nebraska. We know him from this podcast and many other things which come out each and every Tuesday and audio and video form on YouTube. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, email at, markettomarket at Iowa.PBS.org. We'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Bye bye.