U.S. Late Autumn Weather Clouds Summer 2016 Outlook
By Drew Lerner
Kansas City, December 29 (World Weather Inc.) – Weather conditions in the United States during November and December has been unusually wet in the middle of the nation with similarities to both 1991 and 1983. The variance somewhat clouds the 2016 outlook.
World Weather, Inc. has a standard disclaimer that weather never repeats itself in exactly the same way and only a foolish meteorologist would try to make weather patterns duplicate from a previous weather year. With that said and as a follow up to our previous comments about similarities to 1983, we thought it might be interesting to look at the past 60 days of weather and compare it to other El Nino years. In doing so the two images from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (from 1991 and 1982 – see above) showed similarities to the current excessively wet weather that has dominated the past two months. No other El Nino years had such a similar comparison to that of November and December.
In 1991, a wetter than usual weather bias dominated the northeastern, central and southern Great Plains, western Corn Belt and a part of the Delta. This is very similar to this year’s weather trend, although Arizona and 
New Mexico were drier this year while the southeastern states were wetter. The Pacific Northwest was also wetter this year than in 1991, but California was drier biased in 1991 and so were the northeastern states.
In 1983, rain and snowfall were more intense than that of 1991 and a better match for this year’s rain intensity. However, the rainfall was more centered on the heart of the Midwest rather than the Great Plains as was the case this year and it was much wetter in California and the southwestern desert region in 1983 than it has been so far this year. The southeastern states were a little wetter in 1983 and that was a better match for this year, as well.
The biggest difference between the 1991 and 1982 El Nino events was their respective intensities. The 1983 event was the second most intense event since 1950 with this year’s event similar in strength. The 1991 EL Nino was a moderate event while this year, 1982 and 1997 El 
Nino events were the top three in intensity. The stronger 1983 El Nino event is a little better comparison for this year’s weather events and is one of the reasons why we will continue to closely monitor the similarities and differences with this year.
Each El Nino event is different from previous events because of differing weather patterns prevailing in the background. World Weather, Inc.’s biggest concern is that the 18-year cycle is more like that of the 1983 event than that of the 1991 event. The long term weather cycle for 2016 is already advertising a drier bias in the lower Midwest, Delta, southern Plains and southeastern states without any consideration for ENSO.
The growing season of 1983 started off quite wet and ended up quite dry. The 1992 growing season started out rather dry and ended up a little wetter in July before a little dryness returned in August. The impact of dryness in 1992 was not nearly as significant as that of 1983, although nearly all of the dryness in 1983 came in the second half of the growing season. Relief in July 1992 was the saving grace for the crop that year.
Earlier this autumn North America weather was following closely to that of the 1997-98 El Nino event. Its intensity and that of 1982-83 event was impressively strong like this year and for that reason we might need to continue paying closer attention to these two years with less alignment with 1991-92. Both the late winter and early spring seasons of 1998 and 1983 were notably wetter biased in parts of the Midwest and if the similarities in these two years continues with 2015-16 the odds will favor another wet spring which further reinforces our liking of the 1983 summer scenario.
Even though the bottom line impact of 1992 and 1983 on their respective crops was different, both years had some dryness in them and this is quite often the case for years coming off of significant El Nino events – as we illustrated in our previous outlook story released a couple of weeks ago.
The differences in the autumn of 1991, 1982 and 2015 are not dramatic and yet the following summers were notably different and World Weather, Inc. urges great caution in making the assumption that the same level of excessive spring moisture and summer dryness that occurred in 1983 will occur in 2016 because that is highly unlikely. With that said, however, we do perceive some concerns over it being too wet in the spring and some drying tendency in at least a part of the summer that will possibly lead to greater futures market volatility. Whether or not these trends will actually hurt production in 2016 remains to be seen and further research will be conducted in the next few weeks and months to help formulate a summer outlook of higher confidence.
World Weather, Inc. forecasts and comments pertaining to present, past and future weather conditions included in this report constitute the corporation’s judgment as of the date of this report and are subject to change without notice. Comments regarding damage or the impact of weather on agricultural and energy as well as comments made regarding the impact of weather on the commodity and financial markets are the explicit opinions of World Weather, Inc. World Weather, Inc. cannot be held responsible for decisions made by users of the Corporation’s information in any business, trade or investment decision.
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