“We’re confident this El Niño event has already started, it’s part of the reason we’re seeing moisture there in eastern Texas,” Douglas said. “It’s going to have a real strong impact on our weather come this spring and summer.”

High-pressure developments from the West Coast will push some storm tracks into several regions, although the West itself will remain relatively dry for a start to spring. “When we look at forecast for precipitation this upcoming spring, we see a lot of cool wet conditions through the Midwest,” Douglas said, allowing more green-up through that region. Douglas warned that cool and moist conditions could create late planting for crops.

Douglas said a high-pressure trough moving through the Northern Plains is going to head eastward and is “a pattern that brings a cool wet summer for a large portion of the U.S.”

As for the Southwest and its efforts to recover from the record drought of 2011, Douglas said spring won’t provide much relief for west Texas, the Panhandle, New Mexico and Arizona.

But Douglas added “the likelihood this area will stay dry in the fall through the winter, is really not very strong, because we know that El Niño actually comes into the benches in the fall, throughout Texas.”

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“We’re finally going to see relief through a large portion of the U.S. with good moisture in this El Niño event through the fall,” he said. “But the drought will persist in portions of south and west Texas.”

Elsewhere he said the forecast looks good headed north with solid grazing conditions through the plains. “The good moisture you’re seeing is going to be good for the crop, but cooler than normal temperatures could really be a challenge for the corn.”

030612_ncba_4Grain outlook still tight
Weather issues may complicate the effort by U.S. producers to rebuild supplies of grain stocks in 2012, said Mike Murphy, a CattleFax analyst for grain and forage.

Murphy said the stocks use ratio will probably remain low, hovering around 7 percent, and won’t change much for the remainder of 2012, with the ethanol sector possibly growing and heavier shipment of exports. The feed usage of corn domestically may see relief with Central Plains regions and others feeding more wheat, Murphy said.

“The bottom line is between now and spring, we’re not going to change this supply-demand relationship.”

On spot market future prices, Murphy said “there’s pretty stiff resistance in here at 6.50 to 6.75. … We may see this spring, with potentially cool and wet spring, that creates anxiety in the market and it could get a little more push. On the flip side we’ve got great support in here around 5.5 to 5.75 area.”

The driving force behind the growth of the ethanol market is the exports, Murphy said. “If it wasn’t for exports and their growth, we wouldn’t be utilizing as much corn for ethanol production as we are, which currently is at 5 billion bushels for this current marketing year.”

In the 2012 crop outlook, Murphy said acreage is the starting factor to determine supply. The CattleFax forecasts expects about 93.9 million acres of corn planted this year, which ties for the largest in history. Soybean plantings will drop slightly to 74.5 million acres and wheat will jump to about 57.2 million.

“As you think about the end users perspective, let’s not fall asleep at the wheel in here over course of the next three to six months in terms of our needs for corn,” Murphy added. “There’s going to be some challenges in front of us in terms of weather potential, demand side of things and the fact is we’re still dealing with a spot market, with a historical low stocks use level.”  end_mark

PHOTOS
TOP RIGHT: CattleFax meteorologist Art Douglas. Staff photo.
BOTTOM RIGHT: CattleFax analyst Mike Murphy. Staff photo.