It isn’t
supposed to be this cold in October. The official start of winter is
still almost two months away, and yet the weather in much of the western half
of the country right now resembles what we might expect in mid-January.
All-time record lows for the month of October are being set in city after city,
and this extremely cold air is going to push into the Midwest by the end of the
week. Temperatures in the heartland will be up to 50 degrees below
normal, and unfortunately about half of all corn still has not been harvested. Due to unprecedented rainfall
and extreme flooding early in the year, many farmers faced extraordinary delays
in getting their crops planted, and so they were hoping that good weather at
the end of the season would provide time for the crops to fully mature and be
harvested. Unfortunately, a nightmare scenario has materialized
instead. A couple of monster snow storms have already roared through the
Midwest, and now record low temperatures threaten to absolutely wreck the rest
of the harvest season.
When temperatures get significantly
below zero for more than a few hours, scientists tell us that it will kill standing corn…
A significant freeze (28°F
or colder for a few hours) will kill the whole plant, and
any frost will act to defoliate plants, resulting in
diminished grain filling for the seeds, especially on the upper half of the
plants.
And right now we are facing a crisis because less than
half of all U.S. corn has been harvested.
In fact, according to the latest
USDA Crop Progress Report just 41 percent of
all U.S. corn has been harvested so far…
In its weekly Crop Progress
Report, the USDA pegged the U.S. corn harvest at 41%
complete, below the trade’s expectation of 48% and below a five-year
average 61%.
Minnesota is behind the most
regarding picking corn: 22% vs. a 56% five-year average.
So when I
used the term “nightmare scenario” earlier, I was not exaggerating.
The low temperatures that we have
seen this week are hard to believe. According to USA Today, the
temperature in one community in Utah actually hit 45 degrees below zero on
Wednesday…
Subzero
cold was recorded as far south as the Grand Canyon on Wednesday morning, the
Weather Channel said. Big Piney, Wyoming, plunged to minus 24 degrees before
sunrise Wednesday.
Notorious cold spot Peter Sinks,
Utah, dipped to an incredible minus 45 degrees early Wednesday. This
appeared to be the coldest October temperature on record
anywhere in the Lower 48 states, according to Utah-based
meteorologist Timothy Wright.
That is
seriously cold.
And we have also seen many
other all-time
October lows in cities all across the western half of the
country…
-Bozeman,
Montana: minus 14 degrees (Oct. 29 and 30)
-Casper,
Wyoming: minus 8 degrees (Oct. 29 and 30)
-Grand
Junction, Colorado: 12 degrees (Oct. 30)
-Livingston,
Montana: minus 12 degrees (Oct. 29)
-Rawlins,
Wyoming: minus 20 degrees (Oct. 30)
-Rock
Springs, Wyoming: minus 6 degrees (Oct. 30)
-Salt Lake City: 14 degrees (Oct.
30)
We have
never seen anything like this during the month of October ever before.
In Denver, they have actually set
record lows for
three days in a row…
The temperature in Denver
officially dropped to 3 degrees above zero early Wednesday morning. It was cold
enough to shatter the previous record low for October 30 by 4 degrees. It was
our third record temperature in 3 days and one more record is expected Thursday
morning.
It is strange that so much of the
nation is experiencing such bitterly cold weather while much of California is
being burned to a crisp by horrific wildfires.
But this continues a theme that we have been tracking
all year. Everywhere we look there have been bizarre weather extremes,
and many expect that to continue into the winter season.
This week, even “warm weather
cities” are experiencing extremely cold temperatures. For example, the
forecast called for a record low of just 19 degrees in
Albuquerque, New Mexico on Thursday morning…
Thursday
morning in Albuquerque is expected to have a record low temperature of 19
degrees. It will feel like 11 degrees with the wind chill. The current record
low for Oct. 31 in the city is 21.
According to the National Weather
Service, locations from Albuquerque southward, including east central and
southeast New Mexico, “have not seen temperatures this cold since February.”
But the real damage will be done
as this extraordinarily cold air moves into the Midwest. According
to USA Today, we could
see temperatures “30 to 50 degrees below normal” in the central plains…
High temperatures Wednesday were
forecast to be 30 to 50 degrees below normal across
Colorado, Texas and the central Plains, according to meteorologist Ryan Maue of
BAM Weather.
Right now, much of the
Midwest is
currently covered by snow. This has prevented a lot of farmers
from being able to harvest their crops, and now devastatingly cold air is moving
in.
It is likely that the crop losses
in many areas will be severe. And considering what is going on elsewhere in the world right now, this is something
that we cannot afford.
Despite
all of our advanced technology, farmers are still deeply dependent on good
weather, and if farmers do not grow our food we do not eat.
This was already going to be an absolutely abysmal
year for U.S. agriculture, and now this snap of record cold weather is going to
be the nail in the coffin for many U.S. farmers.
Without a
doubt, this is an incredibly important story, and I will continue to keep you
updated as I learn more.
About the Author: I am a
voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay
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