Rainfall

In many ways, the current reporting period from July to October 2016 displays some global patterns that were already noticed in the previous CropWatch bulletins, notably above-average rainfall in a large area including semi-arid areas in Africa and extending across the Arabian Peninsula to central Asia. This pattern has been ongoing for more than one year now. The largest excesses are those that occurred in the Asian part of the region, especially Southern Mongolia (MRU-47, RAIN +201%), Gansu-Xinjiang(MRU-32, +175%), and Inner Mongolia (MRU-35, +56%). As these areas already normally receive fair amounts in the July-October period, increases are significant. Smaller, but still marked excesses in the range from 25% to 30%occurred—from lower to higher increases—in Eastern Central Asia (MRU-52), the Chinese islands of Taiwan (MRU-42), Hainan (MRU-33), and the Lower Yangtze region (MRU-37) where precipitation reached 673 mm (168 mm/month on average and 33% above average). Further west, increases are also reported for western Asia(MRU-31, +28%), Punjab to Gujarat (MRU-48, +33%), and the Pamir Area (MRU-30,+35%) where the precipitation is welcome during the present pre-rabi crop season. Finally, at the western end of the area, increases also include aregion from the Sahara to Afghan deserts (MRU-64, +41%) leading to Gulf of Guinea countries (MRU-03, +11%) and across the Sahel (MRU-08) where the excess of 15%, while modest, has nevertheless benefited the end of the semi-arid crop areas in western and northern-central Africa.

Other notable rainfall excesses included Maritime South-east Asia (MRU-49), which recorded an increase of precipitation over average reaching 25%, while northern Australia (MRU-53) recorded a large positive departure that more than doubled the average (+127%).

In North America, the pattern of largeexcesses in the northernmost areas (which are of limited relevance for crops)also continued this year. The excess nevertheless also affected BritishColumbia to Colorado (MRU-11, +40%), the West Coast (MRU-16, +45%), andparticularly the northern Great Plains (MRU-12, with near double averagerainfall: +97%).

In South America, the Brazilian Nordeste(MRU-22) is the only area that recorded a precipitation excess (+26%).

Precipitation deficits reproduced recentpatterns in east and southern Africa, including in the East African Highlands(MRU-02, -24%); the Horn of Africa (MRU-04, -40%) and Southwest Madagascar(MRU-06, also -40%); and Southern Africa (MRU-09, -11%) and Western Cape(MRU-10, -58%). Water reserves are low from the previous season’s droughtthroughout the region, but the current agricultural season is just starting inthe south.

In South America, dry conditions affectsome areas where cattle plays a larger role than crops, such as WesternPatagonia (MRU-27, -36%).

The previous CropWatch bulletin stressedthe Korean and the Moroccan drought. North Africa-Mediterranean (MRU-07) iscurrently suffering a RAIN deficit (-14%) that extends into Western Europe(MRU-60, also -14%) but intensifies in the east of the region in MediterraneanEurope and Turkey (MRU-59, -26%) and the Caucasus (MRU-29, also at -26%). Theeastern Asian areas (MRU-43, i.e. the Republic of Korea, Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea, and the Primorsky area of Russia and Northern Japan) and MRU-46(Southern Japan) experienced deficits of 28% and 14%, respectively.

In both New Zealand (MRU-56) and Nullarborto Darling (MRU-55) the RAIN deficit reaches between 50% and 60%.

Temperature

Low temperature anomalies were generallyrare this reporting period and usually concerned only isolated MRUs. Thelargest area, in terms of the number of adjacent MRUs affected, occurs inAustralia where the center and south of the continent (MRU-55, Nullarbor toDarling, to MRU-54, Queensland to Victoria) experienced cool spring conditionwith CropWatch TEMP anomalies increasing from -0.5ºC in the east to -1.5 ºC inthe west. In east and southern Africa, low temperature affected the Horn ofAfrica (MRU-04, TEMP -0.7ºC) and the two Malagasy MRUs (MRU-5, -0.7ºC and MRU-6,-1.0ºC). Next come two adjacent areas in South America, central-north Argentina(MRU-25, -1.2ºC) and the Pampas (MRU-26, -0.7 ºC). Also worth mentioning is theCaucasus (MRU-29) with -0.7ºC, before also listing some positive anomalies insouthern Japan and the southern tip of the Korean peninsula (MRU-46, +1.9 ºC)as well as northern Australia (MRU-53) with a +1.5ºC departure.

Radiation

With RADPAR, we find again some well-markedspatial patterns with excess radiation in the tropical and equatorial parts ofthe American continent and Africa: RADPAR, +3.1% in the Amazon (MRU-24), +4.3%in Northern South and Central America (MRU-19) as well as + 4.8% in thecentral-northern Andes (MRU-21), which is a significant value for a sunshinedeparture over a large area. The largest departure occurred in equatorialcentral Africa (MRU-01, covering essentially the Congo basin). The adjacentHorn of Africa (MRU-4) recorded a 4.2% positive RADPAR departure.

Negative RADPAR departures inagriculturally important locations concern basically all of Oceania, maritimeSoutheast Asia, and the whole Asian continent east of the latitude of MRU-48(Punjab to Gujarat), with the exception of Qinghai-Tibet (MRU-39). Thisincludes, among others, the following, in decreasing order of deficit: thelower Yangtze in China (MRU-37, RADPAR -7.9%), New Zealand (MRU-56, -74%),Queensland to Victoria (MRU-54, -7.3%), northern Australia (MRU-53, -5.4%),Taiwan (MRU-42, -5.0%), and Punjab to Gujarat (-4.9% in MRU-48).

Combinations of anomalies

For the current reporting period,generally, little coherence existed between RAIN and other environmental variables, except BIOMSS, which is directly under the influence of water availability. A reasonably good negative correlation between large excesses of rainfall and sunshine (RADPAR) is visible only for large precipitation excesses, especially in Southern Mongolia (MRU-47, RAIN +201% and RADPAR-2.9%), Gansu-Xinjiang (MRU-32, +175%, -3.4%), Northern Australia (MRU-53,+127%, -5.4%) and the northern Great Plains in the United States (MRU-12, +97%and -4.6%). In all those areas, corresponding BIOMSS departure varies from +97%to +132% to +89% to +58%, respectively.

While quite some MRUs experienced a “double anomaly”—for example excess RAIN and RADPAR—only few “triple anomalies” are seen. One, however, is in MRU-04, the Horn of Africa, which suffered from drought (RAIN, -41%) combined with low temperature (-0.7 ºC), and, paradoxically, abundant RADPAR(+4.3%). Another, northern Australia (MRU-53), on the contrary recorded abundant rainfall (+127%), high temperature (+1.5 ºC), and a shortage of sunshine (RADPAR -5.4%).