We're a big country area wise so at any given time we have droughts and wildfires in some areas while others have flooding.
Unfortunately, the drought in the midwest where most of our grain crops are grown is pretty extensive this year.

Reminds me of the Oklahoma "Dust Bowl" back in the 1930s.
History and WX repeating themselves?

Down here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast we average 60" a year. After this mornings 1.11" of rain, we are at 41.41" to date. Pretty much normal for this particular area.

I believe that the hardest hit states are those in the central and south central parts of the USA. North central states seem to be not as badly hurt by drought. At least not Minnesota. We've seen a somewhat dry summer, but there have been worse years in the past. Here the corn crop is considered threatened, but so far is holding out ok. In my area, central Minnesota, we've had enough rain all summer. Not a lot of rain, but enough. We had a good long rain over last night into this morning. That helped a lot. I think the corn and other grain harvests this year will be fair to good if it doesn't get more dry than it has been.

And yes, watch for food prices to skyrocket later this year. Not only because of drought, but because some food wholesalers are likely to take great advantage of a situation and enhance the grains shortage with even higher prices than necessary, blaming it all on drought. You can count on it happening, but to what extent I don't have a clue.
Mark D.

Mark-- There is another factor. The amount of corn annually purchased to turn into ethanol is fixed by law. A certain amount has to be purchased and turned into dilute for gasoline. Period.

So, yes, the price of corn will go up with total corn production definitely going down, as you are competing with the gov't mandate, even if the ethanol winds up sitting in storage due to lower gasoline consumption.

Higher feed prices will then cascade into meat price changes, after more animals go to slaughter. First lower with a meat glut, then higher with fewer animals to slaughter.

John S.

I live in the northeast For about a few weeks in july with no rain which I got alittle worried.But now I think we here are fine for now.

Uh, it was this bad in 1956? And in the 1930's? Not to mention the various famines in Europe hundreds of years ago that brought people to the New World in the first place.

I'm just sayin'.

The drought in the 30's was at least as dry, and I believe more dry, and lasted longer and was more widespread than this little thing. This "little thing", though, can become a lot worse if the situation doesn't improve by next year.

Mark D.

***********************
Is that a question?

**************************
Mark, this dry spell didn't start this year. Last year was as hot and dry and 2010 wasn't very much better where I live. Talk to a farmer here and he doesn't think it's a "little thing." It's his LIFE.

Art, I know it's not a little thing to the farmers who are hit by it.
What I was saying is that it is a little thing to other drought's that have come before. It is still not at all like the dust bowl days. It can get there, and then it will be as bad as or worse. But at this time, it is not as bad.
Mark D.

Those who deny man's effect on climate ignore the fact that man's activities in the Great Plains made the Dust Bowl much worse that it might otherwise have been if native grasses were there instead of field crops. Land speculators at the time even put forth the proposition that farming would increase rainfall from historic records, saying "The rain will follow the plow." It didn't work out that way.
Or, as Richard Feynman put it, (talking about the Challenger explosion): "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

The big difference is in farming techniques, heat here has broken many records even some from 1936, lack of rain is the worst! and we had 3 bands of storms go thru the area just a trace of rain. One good thing we used to have the 3 H's hot, humid, and hazy the hazy (from pollution) has been gone! clear blues skies it is beautiful to look at from under a shade tree!!!!

********************
Agreed. When the U. S. government told the farming community to plant "fence row to fence row," a lot of grass land went under due to moldboards working their way. Same thing happened back in the '30s--albeit differently.

\

Hi Jay, Did you ever hear of CRP? Soil Bank? Shelter belts? Prairie grass fires?
Yah Jay, we evil farmers are plundering the earth. We also know crap when we see it. We
spread it on the fields, to grow food for deep thinkers like Feynman, so he has somthing
to eat.

No one in their right mind will sacrifice their way of life/home for temporary gain. Then again,
Detroit burned in the 60's. I dunno. Trust me. Farmers appreciate their land.

Under the EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard, U.S. refineries are required to blend their gasoline with a certain percentage of biofuel each year. The rule has helped the United States reduce its dependence on oil. But it also requires a lot of corn. In 2012, the standard will require 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol, which could consume as much as 40 percent of this year's already shrunken corn crop.

http://mineralwellsindex.com/onlineonly ... n-for-fuel

The ethanol crop can't be eaten. So other than acreage, fuel corn doesn't compete with food corn.

Fuel ethanol in the US accomplishes absolutely nothing*. It reduces CO in non-catalytic vehicles, the smallest part of the fleet. It increases NOx in ALL vehicles. And the fuel used in growing and processing exceeds the fuel value derived.

* Fuel ethanol's primary accomplishment can't be discussed here but anyone who's followed the issue already knows what it is.

A story about this on the Beeb.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19206199

"The latest forecasts from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggest that this year's corn yield - the amount produced per acre - will be the lowest since 1995-6.
Total production will be the lowest for six years, it forecast, due to the extreme heat and dryness.
As a result, the USDA is predicting further rises in prices. It now thinks farm prices for corn will average $7.50-$8.90 per bushel, a sharp rise on the $5.40-$6.40 per bushel it predicted just a month ago."


John S.