Episode 256
#256 - And Now, The Weather
Daryl Ritchison joins the pod to discuss the intricate interplay of weather phenomena affecting global climates, with a particular emphasis on the anomalous snowfall witnessed in the Gulf region, a rare event that has sparked significant interest. Jacob and Daryl explore the implications of a weak La Niña on weather patterns, the negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and finish on weather conditions in Europe and India.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Intro
(01:00) - Snow in the gulf
(5:30) – Weak La Nina
(11:20) – US Forecast 2025
(18:40) - Negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation, South America
(26:00) – Europe
(31:05) – India
(33:50) – Drought
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
Cognitive Investments is an investment advisory firm, founded in 2019 that provides clients with a nuanced array of financial planning, investment advisory and wealth management services. We aim to grow both our clients’ material wealth (i.e. their existing financial assets) and their human wealth (i.e. their ability to make good strategic decisions for their business, family, and career).
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Transcript
Hello, listeners.
Speaker A:Welcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.
Speaker A:As usual, I'm your host, Jacob Shapiro.
Speaker A:I am rejoined on the podcast by our favorite weather guru.
Speaker A:He probably will hate being called a guru, but that's okay.
Speaker A:I can call him that.
Speaker A:It's Darrell Richardson.
Speaker A:He is the director of the North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network and also the North Dakota State Climatologist.
Speaker A:Thank you, Darrell, for coming on.
Speaker A:A lovely apolitical talk about the weather here, putting aside all of politics for a second.
Speaker A:Obviously, we try to be objective on this podcast at all times.
Speaker A:Hard to make the weather political.
Speaker A:So thank you, Darrell, for coming on and talking about it.
Speaker A:If you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about speaking events, anything else, I have more email addresses than I can count right now, so Jacobacob Shapiro.com probably your best bet for now.
Speaker A:Otherwise, take care of the people that you love.
Speaker A:Cheers and see you out there.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Our favorite weather guru is back on the podcast and I'm thankful for him because he was patient with me because I was a few minutes late as well.
Speaker A:Darryl, it's really good to see you.
Speaker A:How's it going?
Speaker B:Oh, it's going great and it's really nice to be on once again.
Speaker B:It's been a while.
Speaker A:It's been a while.
Speaker A:And honestly, I have been recording on Tuesday, January 28th.
Speaker A:We'll probably get this out at the beginning of next week.
Speaker A:As you can hear from my voice, which is fading and getting tinnier by the moment, I have been on calls all today about Chinese artificial intelligence and US Columbia relations and US Tariffs on Taiwan.
Speaker A:I am really happy to sink into a conversation about something as apolitical as the weather.
Speaker A:This is going to be relaxing to me, so I hope it's relaxing to the listeners, too.
Speaker A:Darrell, the first question I wanted to ask you, oftentimes when, when we're talking, you do a good job of sober, sobering me up and saying, hey, like, this thing may seem crazy, but there's a lot of historical context for this.
Speaker A:This has happened before.
Speaker A:Like, don't worry about this.
Speaker A:We got a foot of snow in New Orleans last week.
Speaker A:Does that fall in the unprecedented category?
Speaker A:Because I was sitting here watching the snowfall and watching my flights get canceled, and I was wondering, what would Daryl say?
Speaker A:Would Darryl say that this is all part of some normal trend in general and this happens every once in a while, or would this shock him to his core?
Speaker B:Nothing in weather shocks me.
Speaker B:Number one.
Speaker B: media has told you about the: Speaker B:Some things only happen once every hundred years.
Speaker B:Some things only happen every 500 years.
Speaker B:I don't necessarily find them unprecedented.
Speaker B:You could use the term rare is what I usually like to describe them.
Speaker B: n about that big snowstorm of: Speaker A:It was I.
Speaker A:So I grew up in rural Georgia, which it's more often to have winter weather up there.
Speaker A: till remember the Blizzard of: Speaker A:I remember sitting in the.
Speaker A:In the living room and we were building snowmen and all the power went out and things like that.
Speaker A:So maybe that'll be something that people remember.
Speaker A:But I mean, the pictures of the snow, you know, falling a foot deep right up to the beach, like on the sand, I mean, just.
Speaker A:Just incredibly wild.
Speaker A: ities to what happened in the: Speaker A:Like, are there similar patterns or similar things that are happening or both just sort of freak occurrences, I think.
Speaker B:I don't like to use the term freak, but it was a very similar pattern.
Speaker B:I love history and weather.
Speaker B:History is usually referenced as climatology, of course, but in many ways, to me, there is a historical aspect of whether that's not so much climatology as it is the stories how humans dealt with such differing things at different times through history.
Speaker B: about that snow event in the: Speaker B: I think it was: Speaker B:And then it happened again.
Speaker B:And so when you understand the past and all these weather events, it's always interesting when they happen, because I'll be the first one to say, oh, I will never probably see that happen.
Speaker B:You know, was that one storm?
Speaker B:And then when you do get to see it, it's fascinating.
Speaker B: It's like the: Speaker B:I was in my TV days going, you know, this could be a historical event.
Speaker B:It just looks like it's going to be terrible.
Speaker B:It probably won't be as bad as it sounds, but it really looks pretty bad.
Speaker B:And it was everything you could have ever imagined.
Speaker B:The 93 storm and then some.
Speaker B:You couldn't really overhype that one.
Speaker B:And in some ways, this event, because where it happened, it was really hard to overhype it too.
Speaker B:It's very unusual.
Speaker B: ht not happen again until the: Speaker A:Probably not.
Speaker A:And this is one case where the forecasts, you know, the forecasts were calling for 4 to 8 inches.
Speaker A:And I was like, I just have a hard time believing there's going to be 4 to 8 inches.
Speaker A:And then like it started falling and I was like, this is going to be more than 48 inches.
Speaker A:Like, I lived in upstate New York for four years.
Speaker A:I've been around snow.
Speaker A:Like this is the real deal.
Speaker A:So yeah, just kind of.
Speaker B:I would have been Conservative and said 4 to 8 too.
Speaker B:Although a lot of computer guidance was indicating the foot that you ended up with.
Speaker B:But do you really believe that when it hasn't happened in 125 years.
Speaker B:But it did well.
Speaker A:And, and, and I don't know if you saw, like, I don't even think technically the city has official records.
Speaker A: Like it's the: Speaker A:They don't have the official records from it from the city.
Speaker A:So they're just guessing.
Speaker A:Yes, to your point, based on the reports and stories around the time, like how much it was.
Speaker A:So for all we know it was like six inches.
Speaker A:But at the time they thought it was the, the biggest.
Speaker B:Yeah, you're right about that.
Speaker B:They really didn't.
Speaker B:And that' true with a lot of those old records.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Well, does the, does the snowstorm tell us anything more broadly about what's happening with weather in the entire world or was it really just an isolated circumstance here in the Gulf?
Speaker B:I would say that it tells you some things because it happened with scenarios that have happened in the past.
Speaker B:And as if anyone's listened to previous when I've been on your podcast or any of my public talks, I oftentimes use analogs, which is similar events in the past and those scenarios ended up doing this.
Speaker B:Why would not those similar scenarios end up being here this year?
Speaker B:And some of the past snow events that have been in the Deep south in the past or even more recently, but just wasn't this bad tended to occur in winters with the upper level wind flow being similar.
Speaker B:That led to dry conditions in the United States that upcoming summer.
Speaker B:Even before the storm.
Speaker B: I've been forecasting: Speaker B: ans and the growing season in: Speaker B:And when something like this happened and when the very few times it's happened, then the fast led to that same scenario, it just in a way increases my confidence.
Speaker A:What is it dry in the core of the country?
Speaker A:Does it selfishly, does it mean also a weaker hurricane season?
Speaker A:I know that we're in a very weak La Nina, although maybe it's going to be out out of the door by the summer.
Speaker A:But I know you also hate it when anybody invokes La Nina.
Speaker A:So why don't I get you started now and you can get on your hobby horse.
Speaker B:Hey, I.
Speaker B:La Nina has impacts.
Speaker B:El Nino has impacts.
Speaker B:It's the thing that always drives me crazy is it's not the only impact.
Speaker B:And truth be told, we're still not technically in a La Nina.
Speaker B:You know, there's a definition for it, which I think meteorologists in any discipline you're in will come up with definitions to kind of keep everyone on the straight and narrow.
Speaker B:But by definition, it's.
Speaker B:La Nina is three consecutive months with the average temperature in the Central Pacific at a half a degree Celsius.
Speaker B:If you're a Fahrenheit, dude, just think 1 degree Fahrenheit or colder.
Speaker B:While December did finish with temperatures below that threshold.
Speaker B:But we have to get through January and February for it to be technically a La Nina.
Speaker B:And I think that's going to happen.
Speaker B:But for all practical purposes, we can call it a La Nina.
Speaker B:If you're curious.
Speaker B:El Nino is the exact opposite.
Speaker B:It's a half a degree Celsius or warmer for a full three straight months, which easily happened a year ago.
Speaker B:So this is La Nina.
Speaker B:It will very likely fade this spring.
Speaker B:And the odds favor this upcoming summer being in neutral territory.
Speaker B:Neither a La Nina or an El Nino, and I bet we sit in neutral territory for a long time, is my strong suspicion.
Speaker B:So then we're looking at other things.
Speaker B:One of the things would be the Pacific Decado Oscillation, which is a larger scale El Nino La Nina in some ways, if you want to look at it.
Speaker B:And also the Atlantic Ocean, which has been warm for 30 years, and it's in its positive phase, you know, how long is that going to last?
Speaker B: s going to turn negative into: Speaker B:Especially European weather.
Speaker B: That could last in the: Speaker B:But it does have some impacts in North America as well.
Speaker A:Does the.
Speaker A:Does the degree of the La Nina or the.
Speaker A:Or the El Nino correspond directly to its impacts?
Speaker A:Like if the temperature is off higher or lower, does that mean that the impacts in, say, South America are going to be greater or weaker?
Speaker B:Yes, I matter of fact, in my talks in the last few months, and I was in Florida a couple of weeks ago before it snowed, but I was a frost advisories when I was there.
Speaker B:Just classic when I'm In Florida, it's always cold.
Speaker B:But when I was there, I was talking to the National Potato Expo.
Speaker B:So the National Potato Council, the big potato meeting every year, this year was in Orlando, you know, went through.
Speaker B:And because it was a newer audience, most of these people have never heard me speak before.
Speaker B:I wanted to really show them that, okay, you hear the word La Nina and you hear the word La Nina and every time, even NOAA for good or bad, does this.
Speaker B:Well, here's the forecast.
Speaker B:La Nina equals this.
Speaker B:And I always go, a, there's more than volv everyone know than just La Nina.
Speaker B:But I go, they don't seem to a lot of times give you the strength and those correlations.
Speaker B:And so I went through the United States map and go, okay, with weak La Ninas, this is what happens with stronger La Ninas.
Speaker B:Notice it's not the same.
Speaker B:And so you get different results based on not only the temperatures, but really how kind of widespread that La Nina.
Speaker B:Where's that cold water pool?
Speaker B:Where is it situated?
Speaker B:If it's situated closer to South America, this tends to happen.
Speaker B:If it's situated more in the Central Pacific, you know, Y instead of X may happen.
Speaker B:And so weak La Ninas oftentimes don't follow the trend that a traditional La Nina would, for example, not to bring back your snow.
Speaker B:But a La Nina, what does a La Nina bring in the southern part of the United States in the winter?
Speaker B:Warm and dry.
Speaker B:It has been nothing but that this year for me.
Speaker B:It brings cold and wet.
Speaker B:It hasn't been that way.
Speaker B:But if you go back in history and look at weak La Ninas, this winter has fit that scenario very well.
Speaker A:And so what does, what does the weak LA into neutral mean for your US Forecast then?
Speaker A:So you already sort of alluded to a drier US Forecast for the core of the country.
Speaker A:But overall, what are you thinking going into the summer and for the rest of the year?
Speaker B: years, if you go back to just: Speaker B:But then you have to go, okay, we also have this negative specific decado oscillation.
Speaker B:Not only is it negative, it's kind of fairly strongly negative.
Speaker B:So you throw that scenario in really a very high percentage of those, like seven of the nine.
Speaker B:You'll see, say, the traditional corn and soybean belts.
Speaker B:So that'd be really areas, you know, running southern Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, the I states, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, they had intended to have, and that's very high percentage, 7 of 9, a drier than average summer.
Speaker B: e a hot, dry summer, say like: Speaker B:But they were dry with temperatures just, you know, maybe not way above average, but just a little bit, which helps in many ways because every degree is more evaporation, more stress on the crops.
Speaker B:But those years then end up being noticeably drier than average.
Speaker B: after a good cropping year of: Speaker A:Say, how about for our friends along the Colorado River?
Speaker A:It was actually a pretty Wet sort of 12 months along the Colorado river and in some of these places in California.
Speaker A:Hard to think about that now with all the devastation that's happened in Los Angeles and in Southern California.
Speaker A:But what do you see there in this country?
Speaker B:Well, if you look at my analogs, that area goes through the spring and then has a pretty good monsoon season that would favor at least average, if not a little bit above average.
Speaker B:Because what will happen, if you can imagine the upper level wind flow is, you know, troughs are dips, ridges, you know, move up, bring warm air towards the poles.
Speaker B:So we would have a trough kind of in the Pacific Northwest, a ridge of high pressure between, say, the Rockies and the Appalachians, and then a trough, especially over New England.
Speaker B:That type of pattern would favor bringing in Gulf of California, Pacific and even Golf of Mexico or no Gulf of America moisture into the Southwest and give them at least a reasonably decent, say, monsoon season in the desert Southwest and so in the Colorado Basin.
Speaker B:But although, say, Southern California has been very dry this winter, not unusual for La Ninas, but a lot of times these weak La Ninas, as you get into spring, they will have a couple of storms come through and, you know, they just had one recently that brought some rain, of course, that will bring devastating mud flows and have negative consequences where the fires were, but bring some moisture that they need at the same time.
Speaker B:So again, my analog package, that's what it suggests in those years and of course, you can't really have the entirety of the lower 48 all dry or all wet.
Speaker B:It's this trough and ridge system.
Speaker B:And if you're going to get the center dry, usually the west coast and the east coast is a little bit more favorable for precipitation.
Speaker A:All right, in deep breath.
Speaker A:I've procrastinated asking for long enough.
Speaker A:How's my Atlantic hurricane season looking?
Speaker B:Boy, any as long as the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation, now we're talking the Atlantic Ocean, it's in its warm phase.
Speaker B: you know, he's the one in the: Speaker B:He wasn't drawn.
Speaker B:We, we had the uptick.
Speaker B:And so in turn, the Gulf is warmer than average, the Atlantic's warmer than average.
Speaker B:The fading La Nina helps a little bit because then we might be able to increase shear, you know, and that's upper level winds being stronger, that may suppress them.
Speaker B:But you know, if I lived where you did in the Gulf coast or the east coast, as long as the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation and these are warmer than average, it would always put up at least one antenna that is just going to be keep an eye on.
Speaker B:And the thing is, even when the hurricane season is weak, we all learned with Andrew in 92, there's really one storm that whole summer and it was, you know, Andrew, it only takes one.
Speaker B:But again, there's just favorability.
Speaker B:I think the La Nina fading helps a little bit, but that doesn't mean that nothing's going to happen.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, to your point, one storm in the wrong place can do a lot of damage.
Speaker A:But I'd prefer if Mother Nature had fewer shots on goal, if you will.
Speaker B: think it's going to take till: Speaker B:You know, the ace, the accumulated cyclone energy that you measure, all the energy from hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, depending on where you're on the planet, is trending downwards.
Speaker B:So the Pacific and Indian Ocean basins have actually been a little quieter in recent years, say in the last decade.
Speaker B:But the Atlantic has been full throttle.
Speaker B:You know, let's be honest here eventually that will probably flip flop where the Atlantic starts settling down, but then the other basins probably will flare back up.
Speaker B:But I still think we're at least three to five years away from that transition to occur.
Speaker A:All right, well, let me push on that a little bit.
Speaker A:So how long, how long do I have to put up with this Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation?
Speaker A:Like, you think it's on its way out in three to five years, 10 to 15?
Speaker A:Too hard?
Speaker B: I've been saying the: Speaker B: e, has been widely used since: Speaker B:So you do get a lot of records, even though they're proxy data and they're not, you know, maybe official and such that the cyclic pattern that you get.
Speaker B:So I would stick to that, that I think you have a few more years before it's going to switch over.
Speaker B:And if history is our guide, it may actually flip flop pretty quickly.
Speaker A:All right, well, from your lips to God's ears.
Speaker A:I want to go back to something you said earlier, which was you said we had a pretty strongly negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Speaker A:Can you tell me.
Speaker A:You've already sort of alluded to it, but can you tell me in plain English what that is?
Speaker A:And then what that means not just for the United States, but from a global perspective, Like, I understand sort of what La Nina is supposed to translate into, but what does a strongly negatively correlated Pacific decadal.
Speaker A:Did I say it right?
Speaker A:Pacific Decadal Oscillation correctly?
Speaker B:It's really weird because, you know, they couldn't name them the same, but it's the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and then in the Atlantic Ocean, it's the Atlantic Multi Decadal Oscillation.
Speaker B:So it's the AMO and the Atlantic PDO in the Pacific.
Speaker B:So really this in many ways came about because of salmon fishing.
Speaker B:They would go, wow, you know, salmon fishery, say in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and then Canada up through Alaska, that, you know, salmon fishing would be really good.
Speaker B:Good numbers, good catches, life was good.
Speaker B:And then all of a sudden, for like 10, 12 years, it just was awful.
Speaker B:Where did all the salmon go?
Speaker B:What's going on?
Speaker B:Well, it was the ocean temperatures.
Speaker B:And so what would happen?
Speaker B:And what happens is the west coast of the United States up into Canada, the ocean temperatures fall, so become colder.
Speaker B:And that's the Cool phase or the negative phase.
Speaker B:At the same time, the Northwest Pacific, say northeast of Japan, between Japan and the Aleutian Islands, that area will actually warm up.
Speaker B:And then when we use flip flop, the positive, then the Northwest Pacific turns colder than average, but the west coast of the United States turn warmer.
Speaker B:And generally speaking, the Pacific, that Cato Oscillation has been negative for the last 15 years.
Speaker B:That colder air will have a tendency to form ridges of high pressure a lot of times over the Atlantic, I'm sorry, over the Rocky Mountains, which in turn brings northwest.
Speaker B:The upper level winds come from the northwest over say the central part of the United States and northwest flow, you can't tap into the Gulf of Mexico moisture as much and it tends to be dry.
Speaker B:So I like to refer to the negative PDO as a dry flavor.
Speaker B:You know, just 10, not every year.
Speaker B:But if you look at all the records, you will get to the point where, you know, probably when the PDO is negative, a lot of folks will only be wet, maybe one out of three years average or below the other years.
Speaker B: you think about it, since say: Speaker B:There's been spots that have been wet, no doubt, but the overall trend has been, you know, a dry flavor.
Speaker B:Say where I am in Fargo, North Dakota talking, you know, we've had five years in a row of below average precipitation and all five years the PDO has been negative.
Speaker B:Last time we really had a wet year was a year where the PDO happened to switch positive instead of negative.
Speaker B:I don't find that be a coincidence.
Speaker A:What does a negative PDO mean for, for Asian countries, if anything, does it affect them in the same way that it affects the United States?
Speaker B:It does in the sense of negative PDO tends to translate into more La Ninas and La Ninas because the waters are a little bit cooler.
Speaker B:You know, La Ninas tend to be the wet years and the good crop years.
Speaker B:In Australia, for example, you know, their forecast wheat production here as they're harvesting wheat is up.
Speaker B:I think, as I think the last I'd read, maybe as much as 25%.
Speaker B:Well, guess what?
Speaker B:Last year was El Nino bad, this year La Nina good.
Speaker B:No surprise on that.
Speaker B:Southeast Asia tends to do that.
Speaker B:But it does tend to also suppress a little bit the number of typhoons.
Speaker B:And you've noticed Asia hasn't had a lot of typhoons in the last several years.
Speaker B:Again, it only takes one and they've had a couple bad ones, but generally speaking, there's not been a lot of them.
Speaker B:So that's how the Pacific Ocean influences both.
Speaker B:Both sides.
Speaker B:You know, it's by far the largest basin.
Speaker B:You know, the Pacific Ocean is 38% of the planet, if I recall correctly.
Speaker B:So it does have impacts.
Speaker B:The one place the impacts are not really there would be, say, Europe and certainly some parts of Africa as well.
Speaker B:But Asia, East Asia for sure.
Speaker B:North and South America for sure.
Speaker A:At least anecdotally, there have been reports out of Argentina about concerns about dryness and concerns about the early crop in Argentina and places in Brazil.
Speaker A:Obviously, they're probably still, you know, PTSD from the triple dip La Nina that.
Speaker A:That caused such damage there.
Speaker A:In general.
Speaker A:Do you think that it's more about that ptsd, or are you.
Speaker A:Are you showing that this week La Nina maybe is going to follow through for our friends down in Argentina and in Brazil?
Speaker B:Well, there's two certainties in my world when there's La Ninas, and it's not.
Speaker B:There's no such thing as 100% in my business.
Speaker B:And as yours, less and less.
Speaker B:If there's anything that I would actually put a few dollars on the table for, it's Argentina being dry with a La Nina of any flavor, weak, moderate, strong, and Australia having a good year and getting some moisture with La Ninas, too.
Speaker B:You know, recently you get north of that little dry area, it's been phenomenally wet.
Speaker B:So, you know, Mato Grosso starting to harvest their soybeans way behind one of the slowest harvests they've had so far.
Speaker B:And they're always the first ones to go.
Speaker B:And even some areas that were a little dry for a while has been getting some rain, which I think is going to continue through the first half of February.
Speaker B:But then there's a sharp boundary, which you described, where it looks like it's going to stay dry.
Speaker B:And probably not every single spot in Argentina.
Speaker B:It's a huge growing area, but generally speaking, you know, average, or certainly many areas below average, the rest of their cropping year, as they get into their harvest and stuff, is probably going to continue.
Speaker B:And this is the time of year in Argentina, of course, there, you know, depends on where then when they planted them.
Speaker B:But, you know, flowering, it's a more critical time as you move south into those areas.
Speaker B:So I would anticipate some droppage of yield potential in Argentina would not surprise me at all.
Speaker A:Mm.
Speaker A:This is a totally separate and random question aside, is there a place where you can actually Bet on weather.
Speaker A:Feel like you can bet on everything else in the world right now.
Speaker A:Like, is there a weather exchange where you can bet on dryness in Argentina or number of storms or things called the markets?
Speaker A:Are there markets?
Speaker A:Well, no, besides the markets.
Speaker A:I mean, like, I made it as.
Speaker B:A joke because that's really like a weather market because every time, you know, something happens, prices change.
Speaker B:But I, I don't know anymore.
Speaker B:It's not in an area I watch.
Speaker B:But I know in the past you could do betting in Las Vegas on weather, but I don't know if you still can any place.
Speaker B:But I always joke because you have.
Speaker A:To predict it with the election results.
Speaker A:And I had somebody on X who was showing me like, oh, what odds on what the next pandemic disease is going to be really grim.
Speaker A:So I was, we should get all the weather guys together and see if you guys are on an exchange, if you can call the shots better than the rest of the gamblers.
Speaker A:Well, let's get to maybe the most, the most geopolitical weather question that I can ask you.
Speaker A:What's the winter going to be like in, in Europe and especially in Eastern Europe?
Speaker A:Are we looking at a colder winter?
Speaker A:Is Vladimir or Vladimir Putin's hopes for a cold winter to hurt Europe going to be thwarted yet again?
Speaker A:What are we seeing?
Speaker B:All indications are that as they finish the rest of their winter, it's going to be, I think worst case scenario is average.
Speaker B:And it still looks pretty warm to me.
Speaker B:Moving forward in time, I do know the latest long range, both the European model and the Americans run a couple times a week.
Speaker B:Guidance out to 45 days, month and a half.
Speaker B:Both of them are indicating that 45 day stretch to be generally not every single day, but overall, the average being above average.
Speaker B:And once you get beyond that, we're almost, you know, into middle March later.
Speaker B:It only can get so cold that time of year.
Speaker B:So I think Mr.
Speaker B:Putin's probably going to be disappointed when the AMO switches in the 30s, then it's going to be the opposite.
Speaker B:More cold winters are average or below.
Speaker B:But in the last 20, you know, this whole decade, the whole century, I should say there's been very few really cold European winters.
Speaker B:But that's pretty typical when the AMO is positive.
Speaker B:All that warm water, you know, you're 2 or 3 degrees Celsius above average water surrounding you to the west, northwest of Europe, it's just going to be, you know, generally gives you an extra couple degrees Celsius and that is a lot less heat that you need to warm those houses up.
Speaker A:Too bad he didn't consult his weather.
Speaker A:Rasputin.
Speaker A:Is there at least an unintended positive of of better growing temperatures and conditions in the Black Sea basin and for Russia itself?
Speaker A:Is that the flip side of the warmer temperatures or no relief?
Speaker B:No, it's been bad because it's been dry with the warm weather.
Speaker B:I've read this from multiple sources that the winter wheat grown went into winter in some of the worst conditions ever, especially in the Russia more than the Ukraine area.
Speaker B:Russia does both ways and this warm dry weather.
Speaker B:And then if it warms up too much, the wheat will try to head too early, which in turn could be damaged if they get a late season cold snap, which oftentimes happens.
Speaker B:You know, it happens in North America.
Speaker B:It happens for them too.
Speaker B:You have warm for a couple of months, it always comes back to haunt you.
Speaker B:Then in the spring you might as well have went cold when you want it in the winter time.
Speaker B:So I think Russia is not going to have a great winter wheat crop.
Speaker B:We'll see what spring wheat does for that season coming up.
Speaker B:But the winter wheat, really, from multiple sources and just looking at the weather and a few people in that area that I follow on X, it just looks bad.
Speaker B:And warm winters with winter wheat when it comes into the season, bad, just not a net positive on all of that.
Speaker B:So in turn, they might end their record breaking exporting seasons for Russia, which will hurt Mr.
Speaker B:Putin and all of that.
Speaker B:So that's the net negative of the warm winter in Europe translating into not the best winter wheat crop.
Speaker B:But again, Russia grows quite a bit of spring wheat too, so there's always that hope coming forward.
Speaker B:But it looks like their winter wheat is going to be pretty poor.
Speaker A:Sounds like you're giving a rather pessimistic forecast for most of the growing regions of the world.
Speaker A:I mean, it sounds like Australia gets a reprieve, but am I right in that you're basically saying that for the next couple of months not going to be ideal for just about any portion of the world?
Speaker B:Yeah, Australia is looking good.
Speaker B:You know, South America was looking great.
Speaker B:And I know no one has to believe me when I say this stuff, but it's hard not to say it.
Speaker B:But for the last month I've been saying, oh, you know, South America looks great.
Speaker B:And I go, wait till harvest season, wait till harvest season.
Speaker B:And last week someone in the markets was speaking after I was speaking and said, geez, Daryl, I thought you were just saying that.
Speaker B:And I go, no, I wasn't just saying that, she goes, well, yeah, look, all this bad stuff that's happening, so, yeah, and then we'll have to see in the United States, I bet we get off to a good start this spring, but hopefully it's not too dry.
Speaker B:But I think there's reasons to believe the markets will be moving a little bit more as we go through the next couple of months because the weather's not necessarily behaving.
Speaker B:But, you know, in my business, and I've been saying this for a long time, you know, we've had a series of some really good growing weather around the world.
Speaker B:You just can't, you know, you don't need to be a meteorologist to know that.
Speaker B:That just not the way the weather works.
Speaker B:You're going to eventually run into a tough year here or there.
Speaker B:That's just the part of growing crops.
Speaker B:And so it looks bad right now, but doesn't mean it's, you know, going to continue for two or three seasons in a row.
Speaker B:But in the short term, like you said, yeah, there's a lot of negatives out there.
Speaker A:Okay, so we hit La Nina, we hit the Atlantic multi decadal, we hit the Pacific decadal.
Speaker A:What are some other ones that we should have in our minds?
Speaker A:Like if we're going to stack on, if we're going to be overachievers here and say, all right, we're not going to stop at La Nina and we're not going to stop at the decadal ones.
Speaker A:Like, what are some other major forces that people should be keeping in mind when they're trying to place the weather for the year in context?
Speaker B:Oh, perhaps the Indian Ocean dipole would be one that most people have never heard of.
Speaker B:It's the iodine right now.
Speaker B:You know, it's in its negative phase.
Speaker B:When it's in its negative phase, think of it as a big giant circulation pattern.
Speaker B:And any circular, nobody can see me do this, but I'll do it for you.
Speaker B:You know, it's like a big giant circle.
Speaker B:You have part of it going up.
Speaker B:An upward motion in the atmosphere is clouds, precipitation.
Speaker B:Okay, Downward sinking motion coming down.
Speaker B:On the other side of this dipole is warm, dry weather.
Speaker B:And so when the Indian Ocean, this dipole is negative that upward, it happens to be Australia.
Speaker B:So Australia has La Nina helping them, plus the iod, this, that.
Speaker B:But these are two positive things for Australia going on right now.
Speaker B:And then, so all of Indonesia, all the islands, through their far southeastern sections of of Asia would bring a little bit of moisture, but it's their dry season, of course, with their monsoon.
Speaker B:But as you go westward into, say, Pakistan, eastern parts of Africa and stuff, that would be hot, dry weather.
Speaker B:Would that carry forward and impact the upcoming monsoon season that's coming here in the next few months?
Speaker B:Will it delay the monsoon season until India?
Speaker B:If it sticks to what it's doing right now, it probably would.
Speaker B:And I don't have to tell anyone from this podcast how, how much dependent, you know, India is on the monsoon season.
Speaker A:Well, in particularly bad timing, especially as the Indian government seems like it's starting to gear up for agricultural reforms.
Speaker A:2.0.
Speaker A:It lost the first fight with the farmers, but now it seems to be gearing up for 2.0.
Speaker A:Already gotten reports of, you know, tractor protests starting to, to go up again.
Speaker A:Man, if you added a delay to the, a significant delay to the monsoon season there, things could get pretty dicey in Indian agriculture.
Speaker B:And so I'm not saying there's going to be a delay, but you asked me what else to watch out for.
Speaker B:That's one I would watch out for.
Speaker B:Because what it's situating right now would lead you to believe there might be a delay.
Speaker B:And so the geopolitics involved, plus that delay could be something very newsworthy as we go through the next few months.
Speaker B:So it's something to watch.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anything else besides the Indian dipole, or is that the last one on your bingo card?
Speaker B:For now, I don't know if I can give all of your people any more.
Speaker B:You know, we went through, you know, I could, you know, the El Nino, La Nino, that oscillation is called enso.
Speaker B:Enso, El Nino, Southern Oscillation.
Speaker B:So I gave you, then, so there's enso, the aml, the pdo, I gave you the iod.
Speaker B:You know, do you, do you want me to talk about the Madden Julian Oscillation, which is a good forecasting tool for the next four to six weeks?
Speaker B:So I'm just throwing all these three letter things at people.
Speaker A:Well, how about this?
Speaker A:How about I, I'll get you out of here on this question.
Speaker A:I know it's, it's gonna, it's gonna make you want to tear your hair out.
Speaker A:But what is, and it's okay, we won't like hold you to it, but what is your most high conviction out there prediction for the year ahead?
Speaker B:The thing I probably the most confident in is the dry forecast in the United States and, you know, a year.
Speaker A:Ago in the Midwest.
Speaker B:A year ago in my 23, 24 talks, La Nina is coming and Agricultural circles, especially in the United States, a La Nina forecast, everyone thinks drought mainly because of what happened in the late 80s.
Speaker B:And that's still.
Speaker B:And I go, no, there's more to it than that.
Speaker B:So a year ago, when people asked me, wow, we're gonna have this big drought in the United States in 24, because this LA Nina is coming, And I go, I really don't think so.
Speaker B:A, there's not going to be a La Nina.
Speaker B:It's going to take forever to form and all of that.
Speaker B: o, I'll give you a drought in: Speaker B:Well, so far that worked out and I probably just jinxed myself.
Speaker B:But I just.
Speaker B:There's a lot of reasons.
Speaker B:I mean, we have, if you do that, amo all by itself has a dry flavor in the core of the United States.
Speaker B:The key, you know, main growing areas, the pdo in the summertime, when it's negative.
Speaker B:So a positive AMO tends just that alone.
Speaker B:If you just plot that dry in the, in the center part of the United States, if you just plot the PDO all by itself, years with a pdo, especially when it's strongly negative, it tended to be dry.
Speaker B:Okay, Summers, after a week, La Nina, a high percentage of those are dry.
Speaker B:And there's a couple of other things out there that also.
Speaker B:So there's a lot of these things add up that that's just say there's a strong indication that it'll be dry.
Speaker B:The weather does what it does.
Speaker B:It snows in New Orleans afoot once every 100 years, you know, so there's no guarantees in the business.
Speaker B: drier than average summer in: Speaker B:And that's why that area probably around the world right now have the most confidence in, in that forecast.
Speaker A:Do you feel like markets have priced that in or do you feel like you're pushing against the grain here?
Speaker B:Well, the markets have been really slow, but I've been getting a lot of phone calls in the last week going, hey, Daryl, I heard so and so talk say I was going to be dry this summer.
Speaker B:Oh, I heard so and so talk.
Speaker B:They're saying a dry summer.
Speaker B:And every time someone calls me about that, I will go, oh, I see, they're copying my forecast.
Speaker B:That makes me feel better.
Speaker B:You know, it's just a joke.
Speaker B:I don't really want, you know, to say anything about this other ag forecaster, you know, in that sense of the word.
Speaker B:But I'm not the only one that's saying it.
Speaker B:And so I'll be curious.
Speaker B:The thing is, it's going to be if it's, if we get out and plant in the spring, there is moisture there to get your crop going.
Speaker B:And so that's a positive.
Speaker B:And if we can get the crop going, then everyone's going to go, oh, this many acres of soybeans, this many acres of corn, it's not going to really affect the markets all that much.
Speaker B:It's really going to take, oh, my goodness, we've gone like five weeks now without very many thunderstorms and there's a lot of stress on the crops.
Speaker B:So it's one of the things to me, the markets may not, if my forecast is right, there might not be very many changes in the market until the middle of summer when there's really more evidence of that.
Speaker B:And also, you know, Brazil raises so much, but the rain that's occurring in Mato Rosso right now is really threatening them getting their safrin, a corn crop, that second corn crop in, because it has to get in time before their dry season comes, which would lower those yields as well.
Speaker B:And they're putting in some very wet soybeans into their bins right now because of the rain for that first harvest.
Speaker B:So, you know, it depends, you know, how you want, how your darts are going to land and what you're wanting to do.
Speaker B:But, you know, if you look at the markets, not much is happening right now.
Speaker B:I understand why they need more evidence.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Although if what you just talked about with Brazil comes to fruition, that'll have some major implications on US China relations, especially as the Trump administration goes in, goes in there and starts talking about Chinese purchases of soybeans and corn and from where, because it hasn't been from the US farmer, at least when it comes to soybeans.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that's, as you know better than me, predicting Trump makes weather forecasting seem easy.
Speaker A:Well, you've got the Trumpian Multi Decadal Oscillation combined with.
Speaker A:I don't know, I'd have to come up with something.
Speaker B:No, you should coin that one.
Speaker B:I like that personally.
Speaker A:Yeah, I will.
Speaker A:It's warm in the Gulf.
Speaker A:Ergo, Trump will decide tariffs on Colombia.
Speaker A:It today.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's about as good as anybody else has.
Speaker A:I think that's about it there.
Speaker A:Anything else you want to say to the listeners before we say bye?
Speaker B:No, just.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me on it's always a pleasure and it's always fun going around the world and seeing what's happening weather wise.
Speaker B:So I appreciate you having me on and giving me that opportunity.
Speaker A:Of course.
Speaker A:We'll look forward to talking to you soon.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for listening to the Jacob Shapiro Podcast.
Speaker A:The show is produced and edited by Jacob Smulian and it's in many ways the Jacob Show.
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Speaker A:If you're interested in learning more about hiring me to speak at your event, or if you want to learn more about the wealth management services that I offer through bespoke or cognitive investments, you can find more information@jacobshapiro.com you can also write to me directly@jacobacobshapiro.com I'm also on on X for now at the handle Jacob Shapp.
Speaker A:That's Jacob Shap.
Speaker A:No dats, dashes or anything else, but I'm not hard to find.
Speaker A:See you out there.
