What we'd really like to know is how last week went across the Midwest and what it might look like in the coming weeks.

Yeah, the last week has been really very nice across a big part of the Midwest.

We've had some warming tendencies take place, a lot of sunshine and the humidity has been down.

And it's been good for a lot of folks.

You know, the week before that, we were suffering from high relative humidity and We're having trouble getting into the fields very quickly in the day.

And anyway, this was a great contrast.

And in the outlook here, it looks like conditions may deteriorate just a little bit because we do have a couple of weather systems coming up.

Turn your attention to crops in South America for me.

Well, while we're trying to get the crop harvested, this has been better news for the areas trying to get winter wheat established, right?

Oh, yes, uh, absolutely.

You know, the hard red winter wheat areas, they've been seesawing back and forth.

You know, in early September it was way too hot and dry.

They couldn't make, uh, any headway whatsoever on their moisture profile 'cause every time it rained, it was followed by, you know, 90-plus, 100-degree temperatures.

So, um, then it rained, and, uh, they started doing a little bit better, but the heat wouldn't, uh, let go completely until here most recently where they did do a little bit better.

But we've had a stretch here in the past, uh, week or so of 80- and 90-degree temperatures all over again, and the humidity's been low.

Um, let's talk about the, you talked about the hurricanes, and- What about cotton damage? Did we see much cotton damage because of the hurricane?

Where shall we start today?

Well, we've got a little excitement in the Gulf of America, so maybe that's a good place to start.

We have a tropical storm, Isaias, uh, that formed earlier this morning.

And, uh, it is going to very quickly intensify.

It will eventually be a Category 2 hurricane, our first hurricane of the Atlantic Basin season.

And, uh, it will, uh, w- move fairly quickly towards the US, Central US Gulf of America coast, and this will likely occur by Friday.

Uh, late Friday, early Saturday, somewhere in that timeframe, system will probably come inland somewhere close to the Florida-Alabama border area, uh, and work its way northward.

Have we seen any snowfall there yet?

What do you see from now through next, not this weekend, but the following one as it relates to the ability of the ground to dry out and firm up and farmers to be able to get into the field?

Yeah, well, the one thing that's working against us right now is the fact that we're going to cool down.

So we're going to lose some of that evaporative moisture rate that we've been having, but we'll have lower humidity.

So maybe that'll help a little bit, too.

We've got certainly today and tomorrow significant rains coming up still yet for the western Corn Belt in general, but unfortunately centered on Iowa.

And I think that we will see at the southern half of the state, picking up on at least 1 to 3 and maybe some local 4-inch amounts.

That's on top of monthly totals in south central parts of the state that are in the 10 to 15 inch range.

Can you give us an update of where they are across South America?

Can you tell me, is it enough?

Yeah, you know, the rain that occurred in recent weeks was certainly welcome.

And any other year, it probably wouldn't have been so detrimental in the sense of not fixing the drought.

But we couldn't do it this year because we had 90 and 100 degree temperatures every day since July.

And that was just taking the moisture right back out of the soil just about as quickly as it was falling.

So we weren't making any progress.

And of course, the drought was pretty serious.

Is it wet there?

What can you tell me about conditions today?

Well, it's not a pretty picture for a large part of the southern plains, Texas and Oklahoma.

Away from West Texas, the heart of Oklahoma and the north central parts of Texas still just chronically dry.

I don't think there's a grazing grass out there that's anything but brown.

And winter wheat planting has occurred in several areas, mostly irrigated fields, and it's been so hot that I don't think the crop is emerging very well.

So the biggest issue there is that they've got to cool down.

Well, the good news is they will cool down.

Just any tidbit there to tell me how dry it is?

Is that gonna change at all anytime soon?

Yeah, you know, I think again, when we get into the latter days of this month, and especially October, we'll probably do a little bit better.

At least we'll get rid of the 90-plus temperatures, and that's been the biggest problem.

You know, we've had some occasional shower and thunderstorm activity in hard red winter wheat country, and under any other year with temperatures closer to normal, this would not be much of an issue right now.

But it's been so blasted hot every day that we're evaporating that moisture out just as quickly as it falls, and so we're not making any headway.

Uh, I think most of the planting area at this time of the year does tend to occur in some irrigated land, uh, but even there it's a little tough when the temperature's pushing up close to 100 every afternoon.

So I, in another...

And then our friends up to the north of us have had too much rain in Canada, haven't they?

I asked him to explain El Niño to me to begin with and which regions of the globe he expected would be affected most and why.

El Nino is a phenomenon that occurs actually in the ocean between the international dateline and the coast of South America.

And within 10 degrees north and south latitude of the equator is where we are most interested in the ocean surface temperatures.

And when those temperatures are notably warmer than usual...

What ends up happening is that there is an adjustment that is made to the positioning and the intensity of high and low pressure systems around the world.

So in the ocean, in that eastern equatorial region of the Pacific, you warm the water.

That's going to create the air to start warming or rising very quickly.

I asked Drew whether we should be expecting this kind of drought and low water levels moving forward more frequently.

How do you think things are progressing there?

Well, they've had a couple of additional bouts of scattered showers and thunderstorms in Center-West Brazil over the past week.

Uh, and most of it's still been quite erratic, mostly light, but it's, uh, pretty unusual to get s- uh, such a frequency of rain to occur in the first days of September.

So this is a, a positive thing for the farmers there.

Maybe not so great for here at, at home from a marketing perspective.

But the situation is going to continue to be favoring scattered showers.

And I know there's been a lot of chatter in the marketplace, "Oh, there's gonna be trouble in South America this year," and there may well be a little later down the road, but they're certainly looking at a potential here to get into the fields nice and early, and that would g- be good for both the soybeans and the safrinha crops, uh, later in '27.

What concerns do we have for seeding the wheat crop in those areas?

Are you worried very much about those areas?

Well, certainly when we look at the state of the fields right now, we would say yes.

But I do think that September will be a nice month of transition for parts of the region.

I believe Oklahoma City, Oklahoma yesterday hit 100 for the 31st time this summer.

There's a lot of folks talking about how that compares to 2011, but it still pales rather greatly.

I think there was 72 days of 100-degree readings in that summer.

I may have that wrong, but I think that's right.

Any place across the planet that Super El Nino is causing a serious problem?

What do you think the weather will bring us across the Corn Belt for the next, I don't know, 10 days or so?

Well, you know, it's kind of interesting.

I went back and, uh, took a hard look at some of the, um, other stronger El Niño events that we've had.

And in most of those years, there was a tendency for September and to some degree early October...

I said that wrong.

Actually it's Au- August and September weather to be drier biased in the Western Corn Belt.

Uh, that would be, uh, parts of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, uh, to a lesser degree farther north, but it, it did show a little bit in southern Minnesota and southeastern South Dakota.

Did you look at the US at all?

What have you been watching?

Yeah.

The latest statistic, uh, that is mind-blowing is coming out of the Philippines.

Uh, they have had just a enormous amount of rain here over the last, uh, few weeks.

It actually started in late July.

But in August alone, just...

And, uh, we were looking at August 1st through the 18th.

Uh, when do you expect them to get rainfall, and will there be enough to get started?

Tell me about the storms today, tomorrow, through the weekend, uh, in the United States.

Well, you know, the, the storms that we had yesterday, the derecho that occurred across parts of the Midwest, was certainly, uh, a significant event for some folks.

It wasn't quite the, um, the solid line that occurred from one end of the country to the other that we saw in 2020, I believe, but, uh, and, and the impact was a lot lighter.

But there is another opportunity for such conditions to occur again.

Uh, that'll be tomorrow night going into, uh, Friday.

And, uh, during that time period, we could see some impressive thunderstorms starting out in southern parts of South Dakota and working their way, uh, across the heart of the Midwest.

Now, these storms, uh, will need to be, uh, certainly closely monitored for their potential for severe, uh, impact.

Can you tell me about it?

Why is that the case?

Yeah, you know, we are in a big, uh, stagnant rut here for the world, and I think it can all be attributed to the El Niño phenomena.

W- it is such a large event and so significant that it is controlling certainly the tropical weather and, uh, there's an oscillation that occurs in the tropics called Madden-Julian oscillation.

And it has really, uh, put that phenomenon into a, a what looks like an infinite loop where it does not rain well in southern parts of, uh, Indonesia and, uh, it continues to restrict some of the rain in other tropical areas of the world.

But it seems like it's having some influence on the midlatitudes too because we have not seen any serious deviation in any of the major midlatitude production areas in several weeks.

And it can be, uh, tied back to the start of the El Niño event.

So I believe that it is having some influence in that respect.

I don't know whether that has been alleviated by the weekend rains, uh, and early rains this week and/or what it might look like going forward.

The, the question comes down, have you been thinking about this very much at all?

Yes, I, I have.

And, uh, because that seems to be the, the question that's on everybody's mind right now is that, you know, the, the news, uh, media and, uh, certainly the, the images of data that are out there and about, uh, they, you know, a pretty impressive heat wave, right? I mean, we saw temperatures, uh, 115 in Montana two or three weeks ago, 114 last weekend in South Dakota.

And, you know, when all those images are presented to us, we have to immediately think, "Oh my gosh, that crop's gotta be dead." Uh, so I did an assessment on that these last couple of days, and a couple of things, uh, stood out to me.

Uh, the first thing was that all of the temperatures that were 100 degrees or above, uh, that were really, uh, extremely hot and, uh, stressful for crops, was actually to the west of most of the key corn and pr- and soybean producing areas.

We saw 90s, uh, in some of the corn and s- and bean country, but it wasn't, uh, it wasn't the extremes.

Uh, we were up there, but it...

Uh-

Begin with Iowa and move through Minnesota and maybe the Dakotas.

Yeah, I think, uh, Iowa is, uh, certainly in a fairly good position right now.

If you'll recall back, uh, I think we have to go a couple of weeks back.

We had this, uh, big rain event.

Uh, it may have been two or three weeks a- back, but they had that big soaking rain over a weekend, and it really bolstered the moisture profile across a big part of the state.

Uh, but not everybody.

Uh, some areas in the west didn't do quite so well.

Uh, start with Minnesota and- North Dakota, maybe Montana, and the spring wheat-growing regions really.

So what I want to know is where these high temperatures took place, how dry it is across the state, and whether the Red River Valley is different than the more western part of North Dakota.

Wow, that was a loaded question.

All right, let's see what we can do with that.

Indeed, I agree with the USDA ratings.

You know, this heat and dryness really just kind of set in in the last week, so I wouldn't expect to see a lot of deterioration, especially not in the Eastern parts of the Dakotas or western Minnesota, most of the excessive heat that occurred here in the past week was really in Montana and central and western parts of South Dakota and southwestern North Dakota.

And those areas have seen a steady decline in crop conditions and the spring wheat rating in Montana was way off.

And there's a lot of crops out there to the west that are really taking it on the chin.

Can you update me on crops in France and Western Europe?

Have we already seen any damage? I know we're not even at 50% of the crop nationally pollinating yet, but.

That's right.

That's right.

We're still early in the game.

And typically that is still not so bad.

And one of the things I noticed over the weekend when we saw those 115 degree temperatures out in Montana is is that the heat, the excessive heat, the temperatures over 100 didn't really get into the Eastern Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, or any of those major corn and soybean producing areas.

And so, yeah, it was dry and it was warm, but they had had some rain just before the heat came on.

So do you think the extended forecast has any threat for that?

I want to know what you're thinking.

Yes.

Well, it depends on where you are.

You know, they always tell you it's location, location, location.

Well, that's what the deal is going to be here this weekend and next week.

Unfortunately, for those folks in the northwestern Corn Belt, in the northern plains, that's where the key area of the heat is going to be.

And we are going to see temperatures in South Dakota and maybe eastern Montana get to very close to, if not at, 110 degrees.

What does France look like today?

Do you have one for the Corn Belt?

Yeah, well, we can pretend like I know what I'm doing.

We'll talk about July.

You know, we are about to turn the corner again.

You know, everyone's been talking about the warm weather and the lack of rain this week, which I think has been just absolutely perfect for the crop.

We've had a lot of areas that have been pretty darn wet.

And we've had a lot of coolness around.

What do you see there?

What about the July outlook as we start heading into a new month?

You know, with the ridge getting out off to the west and that northwesterly flow pattern evolving, we are going to see a routine occurrence of showers and thunderstorms coming into the Midwest from the northwest with some cooler shots of air.

Not colder than normal.

But with all the humidity that we have and the warmth that surrounds the Midwest, there will easily be some above normal precipitation during the month of July in the Ohio River Basin area in particular parts of the Northern Delta in the Tennessee River Basin as well.

Farther to the West, you know, in parts of Western Iowa and South Dakota, we're still going to be playing around with a little bit of lighter than normal rains and probably fighting some dryness at times.

But I don't think it's going to push us over the edge.

I think we're probably going to get enough timely rain to hang in there.

That same phenomenon, the Super El Nino, is also, if you go north of there, is keeping a lot of that moisture up into Canada, isn't it?

Lerner says that will bring some stress not only to crops but livestock in the affected areas.

And when it gets in the 90s with all the moisture we have in and on the soil, it's all going to be pulled up into the atmosphere and suddenly we're going to be in a pretty deep sweat across the region.

It's going to be extremely hot and stressful for livestock.

We're going to have high heat indices across the region and this will quickly dry the soil in some spots.

Fortunately, this ridge of high pressure will not be long lasting.

The good news is this doesn't last too terribly long.

As the ridge shifts to the west, we're going to see that northwesterly flow pattern develop again across portions of the Midwest, and that should bring cooler air and a chance for showers and thunderstorms again.

So by the time we get into that second week of July, things will be getting a lot better again.

Obviously, it's a little too wet in the eastern Corn Belt, but continued to dry in the west and northwestern Corn Belt, right? And that's not going to change.

That's right.

If anything, it's going to continue to get perpetuated.

We do have a temporary change coming up, though, that will allow for the eastern Midwest to heat up and dry down.

But it's only going to last about a week.

In the meantime, right now, we have the last 30 days across a big part of the Midwest has been really pretty fruitful.

We've had a lot of moisture.

So, Drew, the shift in this high-pressure ridge, what's it going to mean for temperatures? Do we have some heat on the way?

Can you tell me about it and how it compares historically and what you think it might mean?

Yeah, I can certainly attempt to do that.

I've been forecasting the weather internationally for about 47 years, I guess it is.

And I do not remember a time when France was this hot for this many days in a row.

We've seen temperature extremes in France running from 110 to 116 degrees each of the last three days.

Today's afternoon temperatures were hottest in the interior northwest and also in the interior southwest where we saw 115 and 113 respectively.

And believe it or not, we've got 100 degrees in London today.

In the subcontinent, India, what are the crops look like today?

Tell me about the rainfall and the cold or cool weather we've been having in the United States and what impact you think it's having on crops across the Corn Belt and, of course, the wheat harvest as well.

Yeah, we are certainly seeing an active weather pattern.

I think everyone already knows that.

The biggest issue that I see coming up in the near term isn't so much for crops as much as it is for us humans, just because with all the moisture that we've got on the ground and in the ground, when it does turn warmer, it's going to get ugly out there.

We're going to be able to cut through the humidity with knives and It's going to be uncomfortable.

But from a crop development perspective, I think the majority of the Midwest, the Delta, southeastern states to some degree, and parts of the plains are doing fairly well.

Now, we have a lot of pockets that are either too wet or still kind of teetering a little bit on being a little dry.

Is it still hot? And do you expect that to continue?