Two Types Of Forecast |
 Dave Thurlow, Host |
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. 1998's El Nino caused untold billions of dollars worth of damage worldwide. And with La Nina affecting the weather this year, scientists are keeping an eye on its economic impact. One person who keeps a close eye on El Nino's and La Nina's is Jim Roemer. He's not only a meteorologist, but he also manages people's money in commodity markets:
JR: "El Nino had a big impact in 1983 with causing billions of dollars of damage to crops around the world. There was flooding in California, there was drought during the summer of '83 in the midwest that had soybean prices go to the highest level in the last 10 to 20 years."
La Nina on the other hand, tends to be associated with more variable weather during the winter and more drought during the summer:
JR: "I would expect that we will see a drier hotter summer this year in the Midwest grain producing areas. That could be a positive impact for corn and soybean futures this summer."
Although long term weather trends like El Nino and La Nina have a huge impact on commodites, it is the shorter weather trends that Jim Roemer watches most closely.
JR: "You go back and look at these trends and El Nino, La Nina patterns and you tend to draw conclusions in the long term cycles of weather and how to trade those markets. But the most important thing is really looking ahead 5 to 10 days down the road, even if we do have an El Nino or La Nina, because the market tends to react to those actual forecasts more than the longer term outlooks."
Two types of forecasting - wrapped into one. Our show is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.