January 31, 2007

 

Drought cuts Australian wheat production this crop year
 

 

The equatorial Pacific Ocean continues to cool as it has done since early December, in a clear sign that an El Nino weather event associated with dry weather in eastern Australia is weakening, the government's Bureau of Meteorology said Wednesday.

 

An El Nino associated drought through 2006 cut wheat production for this crop year to less than 10 million tonnes from 25 million tonnes in the previous crop year ending Mar 31, 2006. The decline in output sharply reduced export availability and slashed farm income by about A$4 billion (about US$3.084 billion) from wheat alone.

 

The cooling bode well for a switch toward average or wetter-than-average conditions across eastern Australia sometime in the late summer or autumn, the bureau reported in a regular update.

 

It noted that a southward extension of tropical moisture has resulted in heavy rainfall across central Australia and the western parts of the three eastern states in recent weeks.

 

This could be taken as a sign that rainfall patterns were beginning to change across Australia, the timing of which was consistent with that observed during previous El Nino events, commented the bureau.

 

In addition to surface cooling of the Pacific, subsurface temperatures have fallen substantially, which will likely promote further weakening of the surface El Nino pattern, the bureau said.

 

However, the bureau noted that a westerly wind burst in mid-January had arrested moves in its southern oscillation index, or SOI, trade winds and central-western Pacific cloudiness toward neutral values.

 

The westerly wind burst has now dissipated, so it is expected that these indicators will continue their general trend toward neutrality over the coming months, in keeping with the weakening of the El Nino event, it said.

 

The SOI, which was in a negative phase May through October, posted a level of -9 in the 30 days ending Jan 8, -3 in December and -1 in November, the bureau said.

 

A consistently strong negative SOI, such as -10, is characteristic of El Nino.

 

According to the bureau, most computer models predict the decay of El Nino conditions in the first half of 2007.

 

The focus of the grains industry is on summer crops, in particular sorghum, the major summer livestock feedgrain, its high production of which would moderate or eliminate any need for imports.

 

The El Nino outlook suggests summer cropping areas in Queensland and New South Wales can expect some showers in coming months, as some have received in recent weeks.