Not Much Dryness Relief For At Least A Week

 

Kansas City, January 15 (World Weather, Inc.) – Mostly dry weather occurred again in Brazil coffee areas Wednesday and little change will occur for a while, although some showers will occur in Parana and Sao Paulo over the next several days. Some showers will reach into Sul de Minas and Rio de Janeiro late this weekend and early next week, but the resulting rainfall will fail to be significant enough to change crop or soil conditions. Greater potentials for showers will increase in Sul de Minas later next week, but no soaking of heavy rainfall is expected.

 

BRAZIL
Very little rain fell in Brazil coffee production areas Wednesday, although showers were noted near Londrina, Parana and in the port city of Sao Paulo where rain totals reached 9 millimeters through midnight CST (0600 GMT). Satellite imagery suggested a few other thunderstorms occurred in interior northern Sao Paulo with the strongest thunderstorm cluster occurring northwest of the port city of Sao Paulo by about 150 miles.

 

High temperatures Wednesday afternoon continued in a mostly seasonably warm range of upper 20s Celsius in southeastern Bahia and in a small region of central Minas Gerais while 30s occurred elsewhere. Most of the highs were 30s to 34, but extremes to 37 occurred in northeastern Minas Gerais, in Zona de Mata and Rio de Janeiro.

 

Significant changes have not occurred to the forecast for the next seven days. High pressure aloft centered over northeastern Brazil will prevail into early next week, although it will gradually weaken. The pattern will maintain a restricted rainfall potential for most coffee areas from Sul de Minas to Bahia and Espirito Santo over much of the period. Totally dry weather may not occur, but the showers that do pop up will prove to be mostly insignificant. Parana and Sao Paulo will continue to experience the highest frequency of shower activity during the coming five days with rain totals that will mostly vary from 1 to 15 millimeters each day. There will be potential for local totals to 25 millimeters, but such instances will be rare until early next week.

 

The center of the high pressure system will breakdown during the early to middle part of next week and during the middle to latter part of the week scattered showers and thunderstorms will increase from Sul de Minas and Rio de Janeiro southward. However, Rainfall is still expected to be erratic and often light. The remnant circulation of air over coffee areas will be slow to change even though the center of the high pressure system will dissipate. That slow change in upper air flow pattern will keep rainfall restricted until a trough of low pressure attempts to move through southern Brazil at the end of next week or into the following weekend.

 

The approaching trough of low pressure is much stronger on the GFS computer forecast model run today relative to that on the European model run. World Weather, Inc. believes the European model is performing best right now and for that reason we will perpetuate showers and thunderstorms into the second weekend of the forecast, but we will leave the greatest rainfall in Parana and Sao Paulo.
The further north one travels in Brazil during the next ten days the drier coffee country will become and the more unlikely significant relief from dryness will be. Zona de Mata remains the most stressed coffee production region in the nation with some unirrigated areas in Espirito Santo, northern Minas Gerais and Bahia also experiencing a growing amount of stress each day. West-central Minas Gerais crops are also experiencing a growing amount of stress. The pattern change advertised is not great enough to seriously change rainfall in these more northern coffee production areas and that will likely leave crop stress running very high even if there are a few showers and thunderstorms late next week or into the following weekend. Any precipitation that occurs will not be generalized in these more northern crop areas.

 

Sul de Minas, Rio de Janeiro and areas south into Parana will receive 5 to 20 millimeters of daily rainfall with local totals to 35 during the second half of next week and into the following weekend. Most of the precipitation will be greatest in Parana and Sao Paulo, however, leaving much of Sul de Minas in need of greater rainfall.

 

Temperatures will change little over the next week to ten days. Highs in the 30s will occur often with a few upper 20s periodically. Lowest morning temperatures will be in the upper teens through the lower 20s with a few middle 20s.