Largest Natural Disaster in the United States EVER - Happening Now


lds2
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Corn aka, sucrose is in almost every food and is a sugar substitute. But it is also responsible for the obesity problem in the US. Corn is used to feed cows. If cows are not killed off, then maybe, we don't need to use as much corn to feed the older animals that eat less then a growing calf.

Intially this years crop had 77 percent that looked at least good, I started watching a few weeks ago when 63 percent still looked good, the next week it was 53 percent, etc. Right now it is 40 percent and the crops are most damaged by heat during pollination which is happening right now. So the greatest possible damage to the corn crop hasn't begun to be counted yet.

Here is what non-government sources are saying, "A continuation of widespread stressful weather suggests that the average U.S. corn yield could be lower, perhaps much lower, than 146 bushels per acre."

Rationing the 2012 corn crop - Are we there yet? Markets - Cattle & Grain Prices, Quotes, Charts

Here is the drought monitor for the United States. There aren't many areas left that aren't in drought, and a good portion of our "breadbasket" is in severe drought.

US Drought Monitor

As far as the crops are concerned the numbers aren't very accurate until August when they do the field surveys and even then there can be politics involved (as they cut the crop estimates this week they also cut expected usage which doesn't make sense with droughts in the breadbaskets of China, Russia/Ukraine, Korea, etc.), but it is August when a largest decrease in the numbers is expected...

But this drought is being compared to the 1988 drought in heat and duration so far and by the end of the season an acre on average produced 83 bushels of corn that year. Right now the estimate is still forecast at 146 bushels per acre with no rain in sight. Russia and China are also having their harvest estimates reduced and 1 or 2 percent in China is huge when they start turning their eye to importing the difference!

While world stocks don't look that bad on paper you have to look at who controls a lot of the excess and many of those are not US friendly countries and have reserves stored in case of natural disaster (like now) or war and already have huge contracts for this years global harvests in place. Other regularly importing countries have been holding off on their contracts hoping for better global harvests bringing prices down (due to the record crops planted and once bountiful harvest projected) and now have to enter the bidding with record breaking prices due to lower supply and increased demand.

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One thread you say our problem is global warming in this one that food contributes to obesity so we don't really need it...

Corn and soy are major fillers in our food supply because they are cheap. It is unlikely that they are going to be replaced with things that are more expensive...so next we will be told that sawdust type fillers and synthetics in our food used to replace these fillers are actually great for us because they are low fat and provide products with less calories.

There is not a shortage of sugar this year (at all) so what we are also going to see is a lot more sugar coatings on smaller products. I don't think that will effect the number of obese people in this country.

What the substitute fillers will do to our health is anyones guess.

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Global Food Reserves Have Reached Their Lowest Level In Almost 40 Years but the population has grown exponentially since then.

Food prices went up 10 percent between June and July. Food prices are expected to go up (depending on what product) between 5 and 20 percent before the end of December. Food prices are expected to really rise before winter crops come in in the spring.

"Evan Fraser, author of Empires of Food and a geography lecturer at Guelph University in Ontario, Canada, says: “For six of the last 11 years the world has consumed more food than it has grown. We do not have any buffer and are running down reserves. Our stocks are very low and if we have a dry winter and a poor rice harvest we could see a major food crisis across the board.”

“Even if things do not boil over this year, by next summer we’ll have used up this buffer .”

Global Food Reserves Have Reached Their Lowest Level In Almost 40 Years (NYSEARCA:MOO, NYSEARCA:DBA, NYSE:POT, NYSE:MON, NYSE:DE, NYSE:AGU) | ETF DAILY NEWS

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I have a small amount of farm land in Illinois. I was talking to a cousin that still lives there and he said that one 40 acre field on his farm varied from 10 bushels to 175 bushels per acre. It averaged 140 per acre when it should have yielded 200+ per acre. On my land one field yielded 200 per acre and right across the road it was 140 per acre. The only difference was a 5 day difference in the corn variety growing season. One field had a sprinkle with higher humidity during pollination. I did OK on one field and slightly over break even on the other. 10 miles in any direction they are looking at 100 bushels per acre. Even at $7-8 per bushel no one is going to get rich.

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Corn aka, sucrose is in almost every food and is a sugar substitute. But it is also responsible for the obesity problem in the US. Corn is used to feed cows. If cows are not killed off, then maybe, we don't need to use as much corn to feed the older animals that eat less then a growing calf.

1) I think you mean fructose, not sucrose, specifically high fructose corn syrup

2) The obesity problem is a multifaceted issue, not a single / causal one. SOME of the issues at play are:

- Babies who are being transitioned off breast milk & formula too soon

- Dieting during adolescence, particularly for women. In school we read a 5 generation several hundred thousand participant HUGE study that showed that girls who dieted duri g the year prior to the start of menses (when girls typically pudge out 15-30bs for 6-12 mo), typically struggle with being 15-30 pounds overweight until menopause. Meanwhile those who do NOT diet to lose weight, the added weight melts off with no effort in 6-12mo, and the maintain a healthy weight in general until menopause.

- Children being fed low fat / high fiber diets (healthy adult diets being very UNhealthy for kids who need a high fat diet for their brain & neuro development, as well as protein and mineral rich for bone and muscle development). The chronic malnutrition caused by imposing an adult diet on growing kids = setting their bodies into being constantlu hungry with the filler rich diet slowing metabolisms & hoarding calories as far storage.

((At least for women, and possibly both sexes, there appears to be 'base metabolic rate & body composition periods where the body sets 'normal'.))

- (Sugar overload) High concentration of carbohydrate rich foods (the old 'bottom of the pyramid'), sugar rich foods, particularly out of season availability of fruits, high fructose corn syrup, & pre packaged foods (cereals for example), which are both simple carb and sugar coated (along with chips/ crackers/ noodles/ etc.). Not only sucrose, but also fructose, lactose, galactose, dextrose, etc. (pick an 'ose' any 'ose'!). Also an increasing alcohol consumption (which metabolizes into sugar... Alcohol has a number of other problems: liver enlargement, etc that w.o.w. just nixes).

- (additives & laboratory created foods). High fructose corn syrup has already been mentioned, also aspartame (the synthetic version of the chemical created when one adds milk to bananas... In the long term aspartame causes cell membranes to become less permeable. Which both makes the body 'hungrier' as cells aren't able to access readily available nutrients, and also makes it harder for the body to use stored energy (fat). Also highly saturated fats/glycerides, margarine,

- (Poverty). A huge percentage of Americans are at or below ghe poverty line... Which lowers foot quality (high sugar/high fat/low protein foods being the cheapest foods available). This INCLUDES underbugeted schools serving low quality food to students.

- (scarcity / lowered metabolisms) Starvation and yoyo dieting, lowered activity levels (sedentary schooling and working days), necessity for motorized transport (cars, primarilly... But also trains and other forms of public transportation. Few Americans walk 5+ miles per day, meanwhile most 1st world countries with similar diets BUT little to no obesity ... Citizenry walks 5+ miles per day), strollers (children previously walking or being carried are now rolled about; impacting both their own expenditure and muscle tone as well as those who would have previously been carrying them).

- (genetic diversity) Certain ancestries are more prone to certain body types (France more prone to ectomorphs, Polynesia prone to endomorphs, just as 2 examples). In the US we have such a genetically diverse base that we see families being 'obese' (endomorphs) with extremely healthy diet and lifestyles, and people being underweight (ectomorphs) even with extremely unhealthy diets and lifestyles.

I think that's what? About 40 facets so far? And. The. List. Just. Keeps. Going.

The media can blame high fructose corn syrup till the cows come home. The media is just wrong. There is no single cause, but a combination of factors are in play.

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Unfortunately, the soy and corn crops aren't the only bad news. The condition of winter-wheat crops in the U.S. are the worst for this time of year since the government began monitoring in 1985, as drought damage spread to the Great Plains.

An estimated 40 percent of winter wheat, the most-common domestic variety, was rated good or excellent as of Oct. 28, with 15 percent in poor or very poor condtition.

This is the first assessment of the winter wheat. Hopefully it will get the moisture it needs before the wheat goes dormant for the winter. We really need a good crop this year!

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I was talking to the manager of a local food storage store and she said that they are being rationed in all their corn products. They charge around $40 for 50 lbs of popcorn and they just got their last shipment before February. Sam's Club is selling it for $22. Also wheat is still $16.35 for 45 lbs in a SIX gallon bucket. That is a great price as wheat is now about $18 at Honeyville Grains and $23 at the church cannery NOT including the bucket to store it in.

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America’s first official disaster areas of 2013 have been designated with just shy of 600 counties that have now experienced severe drought conditions for eight weeks in a row (according to the U.S. Drought Monitor) The critical spring planting season hangs in the balance as drought threatens to make 2013 an even worse drought yeat than 2012. Light winter snows haven’t given the central U.S. the moisture the soil so very desperately needs. The government has declared much of the central and southern wheat belt a disaster area.

2013 Already a Drought Disaster : Discovery News

The wheat harvest was not greatly impacted last year by the record breaking drought because the hot temperatures didn't really start until July and winter wheat is harvested in the spring and early summer. A lot of the spring wheat which is harvested later is grown to the north where the drought was not as severe. This year could be very different if current government forecasts turn out to be accurate.

Edited by lds2
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I've been wondering, with all the flooding in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys if the drought is over and today weather.com had an article on that.

Over the past year I have been watching to see if a continuation through a regional drought will outdo the "dust bowl" years drought in severety.

So here is what weather.com are saying:

"a large swath of the nation remains in drought from the Upper Midwest and Plains to Southern California. A swath of central Florida has also slipped into drought. Overall, 47% of the contiguous U.S. remains in drought."

But there has been improvement in many of these areas the drought has lessened in severety and in some areas they have experienced record breaking rain/snow this April. Of course it is normal for rains to happen in the spring, it will be whether the weather patterns this summer improve, remember last year they seldom went West to East, but went North towards Montana/Canada before heading East.

It will be what happens this summer to our crops that is important. Here is the article with the drought map (for as long as the link lasts)

Has the Drought Improved? - weather.com

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"The weather map ... looks like something out of The Twilight Zone," Minneapolis meteorologist Paul Douglas of WeatherNation TV wrote on his blog last week...As for the cause of the ongoing cold? A stuck weather pattern that's continued to funnel frigid air into the central USA from Canada for the past few months.

Awful April: Spring hard to find across northern USA

Temperatures are stuck in California and Arizona at warm temperatures while other areas are stuck with record breaking cold. They don't expect things to get better in the near future. "Twilight Zone" weather in a lot of places right now.

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Wet and chilly weather into the weekend will continue to slow plantings of the U.S. corn crop that already has fallen to the slowest seeding pace on record (although I don't think it is really a huge concern yet.) However, what is really concerning is that the weather is taking a toll on the developing winter wheat crop, which deteriorated to its worst condition for this time of year in 17 years! (Remember this thread is about how weird weather patterns are causing crops problems and after the past few years we really NEED good crops and grazing lands this year.)

For instance in Kansas their Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday that just 17 percent of the planned corn is now in the ground. Only 3 percent of the winter wheat crop has headed, which is about three weeks behind normal. Forty percent of the wheat crop is rated in poor to very poor condition. Also, many ranchers are still having to feed their cattle grain where normally they should be getting plenty of grazing this time of year.

In Minnesota corn plantings are only two percent complete which is almost 50 percent behind. Oat planting is 9 percent complete, compared with 96 percent last year.

The USDA says many livestock producers are very concerned about the slow growth of alfalfa and pastures.

Also, very weird weather lately in some parts of the country with snow storms in MAY in places that have never seen snow before this time of year..

Edited by lds2
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Many places are experiencing record lows while many others record highs this week:

Aberdeen, S.D. saw a temperature swing of 70 degrees from 22 on Sunday morning to 92 on Monday afternoon!

Salt Lake City, Utah (93), Boise, Idaho (95) and Bismarck, N.D. (91) were among the cities that either tied or set new record highs for May 13.

Weather.com

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Russian tornado

Wintry spring costs Western Europe - The weather in Western Europe this month could easily have been mistaken for mid-winter. .

Western Europe wallows in wintry weather.

Flooding forces people from homes in Norway - Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes after heavy rain caused flooding in southeastern Norway. In Nesbyen, a mudslide reached properties

Lightning splits the sky over Zhuhai, China - Heavy rainfall since the weekend has killed two people in south China’s Guangdong Province, bringing the death toll resulting from rainstorms to 36 this year

‘Devastation and sadness’ in tornado-weary suburb of Moore, Oklahoma. Elementary School devastated.

Paris drizzles as Moscow sizzles in Europe’s warped spring

Hundreds stranded by floods in southern Chinese province.Thousands evacuated as Cyclone Mahasen hits Bangladesh and heads for Myanmar.

Cyclone - Already forced from their homes because of sectarian violence, thousands of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims are again packing up. This time, with Cyclone...

Tornadoes tear through Texas killing 6...

Huge tornado hits northern Italy - A huge tornado has struck the Emilio-Romagna region of northern Italy this weekend.

When weather becomes climate, instead of "weather weirding" in Europe they are calling the weather "warped."

Edited by lds2
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Last year’s drought left winter-wheat fields in November in the worst condition since at least 1985, when the government started keeping records.

Winter-wheat crops currently in “very poor” to “poor” condition stood at 41% today May 28th, compared to only 14% recorded in the same week a year ago.

Remember last year the wheat crop was fine as the record breaking heat really didn't start until July and winter wheat is harvested in June. But this year a lot more of the wheat crop is being hammered by weather "weirdness" begun last year and still continuing.

Edited by lds2
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Articles out the last few days tell of the 500 year flood in Europe happening in places like the Czech republic and Germany. Another article talked of how Germany has had only a few days of sunshine this year so far with overcast skies and rain caused by stalled weather patterns.

Of course Oklahoma is also experiencing extreme weather including a rising death count.

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Largest E5 tornado ever recorded at 2.6 miles wide this week in Oklahoma.

Huge storm to hit the South East (gulf) they are wondering if this could be the first tropical storm? of the season (which is expected to be an active season.)

Huge California and New Mexico fires.

Mississippi river is ten feet above flood stage.

CNN-news

Fires, floods, storms: Mother Nature sends extremes across U.S. - CNN.com

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Largest E5 tornado ever recorded at 2.6 miles wide this week in Oklahoma.

Huge storm to hit the South East (gulf) they are wondering if this could be the first tropical storm? of the season (which is expected to be an active season.)

Huge California and New Mexico fires.

Mississippi river is ten feet above flood stage.

CNN-news

Fires, floods, storms: Mother Nature sends extremes across U.S. - CNN.com

Except for OK getting hit pretty hard for a few weeks, this was one of the quietest tornado seasons in a long time.

When I lived in MN, the mighty Mississippi flooded on a regular basis, probably every other year, along with the Red River.

The storm in the gulf is only expected to be a tropical depression or maybe a tropical storm but not a hurricane.

Other than a long cold, wet spring ( as opposed to last summer's dire droughts) it doesn't sound like a terribly unusual year to me.

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California has already sustained fire damage not normally seen until late summer. Fireseason this year has been early and is expected to continue extreme as this is the second dry year in a row with snow packs being 21 percent of normal for this time of year.

Tornados -- Over the past decade we have seen the six least active and four most active tornado seasons. This thread is mostly about how the unusual wind currents are affecting the weather and causing record breaking weather. The recent record breaking tornado is of note. Also another statistic that points to the irregular and weird jet stream patterns is that the three earliest and four latest starts to the tornado season have all occurred in the past 15 years. Overall we could very well continue to see fewer days of tornadoes overall, but more frequent and much more destructive tornadoes when they do occur. Nothing really "normal" about tornados lately.

Talking about quick starts, Andrea the first tropical storm is here and scientists are saying things like: “This year, oceanic and atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic basin are expected to produce more and stronger hurricanes,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “These conditions include weaker wind shear, warmer Atlantic waters and conducive winds patterns coming from Africa." After Sandy last year many more of us are "watching.".

Precipitation was mostly below normal in the West where much of the Southwest, the Great Basin and California received less than half of normal precipitation. Some parts of the northern Plains and the Upper Mississippi received three times the normal precipitation, as did some parts of the Southeast and New England. However, much of the central Plains remained dry. Continued dryness is a big concern for crops after the extreme record breaking heat last year.

Residents along the Mississippi River have experienced a severe case of flood-drought-flood weather whiplash over the past two years. The Mississippi reached its highest level on record in 2011. Last year, after the great drought of 2012, the river had fallen by over 53′ to an all time record low. The river is again at flood stage.

Seriously, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "normal" to the weather patterns in many places lately, unless one considers extreme weather the new normal.

.

Edited by lds2
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