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Back in July, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center (CPC) warned that an El Niño weather pattern was forming in the eastern Pacific Ocean, threatening the Northern Hemisphere with a warmer, drier weather pattern for the coming winter. The weather pattern weakened over the past few months and yesterday the CPC discontinued its El Niño Watch.

The agency did say that weather conditions similar to the El Niño pattern may still emerge, but “it is now considered less likely that a fully coupled El Niño will develop.”

Last year’s La Niña pattern gets the blame for the severe drought conditions in the Southwest. A La Niña pattern cools the waters in the eastern Pacific and leads to much drier weather in parts of the U.S. The CPC is now predicting that the Northern Hemisphere’s coming winter will not be affected either by La Niña or El Niño.

Wheat prices rose sharply yesterday, to more than $9 a bushel as dry weather from the past summer continues and has affected the formation of the winter wheat crop in the U.S.

Paul Ausick