Southern Argentina Rains Threaten More Flooding

Download .pdf

By Drew Lerner

Kansas City, February 14 (World Weather Inc.) – Argentina’s wild weather this summer is apparently not over. Today’s forecast is still wet in southern parts of the nation with a slightly more expansive area of heavy rain suggested relative to that advertised Monday. The stormy weather begins late this week and lasts through much of next week (according to the GFS model) and the impact will not be good for sunseed quality or fieldwork. There will also be some new concern over the condition of other crops, including soybeans, late season corn and sorghum. However, the European model is not as wet.

Soil conditions Monday were rated favorably in much of the nation. Some excessive moisture was present in the topsoil after heavy rain occurred during the weekend. Most of the greatest rainfall during the weekend was concentrated on Santiago del Estero and a few neighboring areas in the northwest part of Argentina and on Entre Rios and western Uruguay. The northwestern rainfall recently may have saturated the topsoil, but it was needed to help recharge subsoil moisture which was still low from early season heat and dryness.

            There were not many areas in Argentina that were considered too dry Monday. A few areas in southern Buenos Aires and southern La Pampa had dried out and would benefit from some rain. A few random locations in central parts of corn and soybean country had been missed by rain in the most recent week, but other areas were plenty moist. Subsoil moisture was still rated adequately in the majority of the nation.

Rain totals over the past week reached up near 5.00 inches in west-central Santiago del Estero and varied from 4.00 to nearly 7.00 inches from eastern Entre Rios into Uruguay. Rain totals elsewhere were mostly 1.00 to 2.75 inches, although there were several areas from central Cordoba through southern Santa Fe to southeastern Buenos Aires that were dry or mostly dry. Far southwestern Buenos Aires and southern La Pampa were also left in a net drying mode.

The drier biased areas were not of much concern because of abundant rain earlier this month and last. Most of Argentina has been wetter biased in recent weeks with the first half of February two to more than five times wetter than usual from northeastern and east-central La Pampa to central Buenos Aires. Other areas in the northwest and east-central parts of the nation were one to three times wetter than usual while a few locations in central parts of the nation reported slightly less than average precipitation.

Those areas that dried down this past week in Argentina will be the areas to handle the coming wet weather best because of some room for moisture in the soil. However, Argentina crop areas will not be able to tolerate large amounts of rain without falling into a flood environment and worry is rising today because of a wetter forecast for most of the south during the period from late this week through much of next week.

            The European forecast model is a little less generous with its rainfall forecast for Argentina and it generates some ridge building aloft over the nation next week to help stymie the wet weather pattern. This European model solution is preferred over the GFS model that perpetuates the wet pattern through most of next week. The GFS model produces too much rain too often and will have to adjust the rain outlook later this week. In either case, however, the wetter bias that evolves for a while later this week and through the weekend will saturate some of the drier areas and maintain saturated field conditions in other areas leading to some additional flood threat.

Sunseed is most sensitive to rainfall during the maturation and harvest season. Harvesting is under way with 35% of the crop already out of the fields compared to 36% last year at this time. Most of the harvest so far has been completed in Santa Fe. Entre Rios is already reporting some notable delay in its sunseed harvest, although it does not generally produce much sunseed. Entre Rios and Cordoba sunseed harvesting is most behind the usual pace with many areas not harvested that should at least be progressing with fieldwork by now.  Neither Entre Rios or Cordoba are huge sunseed producers, but much of the nation’s crop does come from Buenos Aires and areas northwest into La Pampa and San Luis where 68% of the crop is located and this area may receive significant rain in the coming week along with southern corn, soybean and sorghum production areas.

Rain is expected to be greatest through the weekend and into early next week from Uruguay to southern Cordoba and San Luis including much of Buenos Aires. Some of this region will receive multiple inches of rain that will either saturate the soil or maintain such conditions with some significant runoff and flooding. Entre Rios, western Uruguay and a few areas in southern Santa Fe and northeastern Buenos Aires will be wettest. Some of these wetter areas were flooded earlier this summer and the new rain will not likely bode well for the previously damaged crops. With that said, World Weather, Inc. expects some new flooding later this week, but new damage to production may be hard to find except to the quality of sunseed waiting to be harvested.

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.

©2017 World Weather, Inc. Any unauthorized redistribution, duplication or disclosure is prohibited by law and will result in prosecution.