Brazil Coffee Weather

Last Week Of Month Earliest Opportunity For Rain

By Drew Lerner

Kansas City, October 15 (World Weather, Inc.) – Concern about coffee production in Brazil has risen in the marketplace the past few days as dryness remains persistent and temperatures very warm to hot. A reduction in relative humidity has occurred in some areas raising warning flags of greater stress levels in some coffee trees. A few erratic showers will occur through the middle part of next week, but “meaningful” rain that would have potential to bring relief to the drier areas of Sul de Minas, northeastern Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Zona de Mata and Cerrado Mineiro will not be possible until the last week of this month.

BRAZIL

No rain fell in Brazil coffee production areas Wednesday and temperatures remained warmer than usual. High temperatures Wednesday afternoon were mostly in the 30s Celsius with a few middle and upper 20s near the Sao Paulo coast. A few extreme highs reached near 40 in far northern Minas Gerais.

No significant change was offered in the computer forecast model guidance overnight. Weather pattern changes are not likely for the next eight or nine days, but the last week of this month will begin generating some rain from northeastern Sao Paulo into a part of Sul de Minas, Rio de Janeiro and “possibly” southern portions of both Zona de Mata and southern Cerrado Mineiro. Most of the rain that occurs during the last week of the month will be light, but it will provide “opportunity” for a little relief to the recent hot, dry,

Brazil Coffee Weather

conditions. Rainfall that occurs today through Friday of next week will be mostly insignificant.

Showers will impact a few coffee production areas each day through the end of next week, but resulting rainfall will rarely exceed 6 millimeters most days and none of the rain will be great enough to counter evaporation. A localized greater rain total will be possible on any day with Parana, southwestern Sao Paulo and a few coastal areas from Sao Paulo to Bahia most likely to encounter the precipitation.

Showers and a few thunderstorms will begin to increase in the last week of October in Sul de Minas, Rio de Janeiro, southern Zona de Mata, southern portions of Cerrado Mineiro and northeastern Sao Paulo, but areas to the north may not see much opportunity for rain. It is a little early to correctly predict rain amounts that might occur in the last week of the month, but daily amounts of 5 to 15 millimeters and locally more may evolve. Confidence in the late October rainfall pattern is low, but that is the earliest that any increase in shower activity will take place. A further increase in rainfall should occur in the first half of November.

Temperatures will continue warm with daily highs in the upper 20s and 30s Celsius in most of the production region. The warmest conditions are expected from northern Sao Paulo through western and northern Minas Gerais to central Bahia. A few extreme highs near 40 are expected from northern Minas Gerais to central Bahia. Lowest morning temperatures will be in the teens and lower 20s.

Brazil Coffee Weather

Another Week of Generally Dry, Warm Conditions

By Drew Lerner

Kansas City, October 9 (World Weather, Inc.) – Rain Thursday was mostly confined to northern Parana and southwestern Sao Paulo. These areas will have additional opportunity for rain over the next two weeks while the main coffee areas of northeastern Sao Paulo, Sul de Minas, Cerrado Mineiro and Zona de Mata stay dry or mostly dry and warm.

BRAZIL

Mostly dry weather occurred in Brazil’s most important coffee production areas from northeastern Sao Paulo northward Thursday. Satellite imagery suggested a few thunderstorms in northernmost Parana and far southwestern parts of Sao Paulo. High temperatures were mostly in the 30s from northern Parana to central Bahia. Highs in eastern Minas Gerais and parts of both Zona de Mata and Espirito Santo to eastern Bahia were mostly in the upper 20s and lower 30s.

Today’s forecast has not changed much over that of Thursday. Most of Brazil’s key coffee production areas will be left dry through the middle part of next week. Any rain that evolves will be mostly confined to Parana and southwestern Sao Paulo and some of that region may receive some hefty rainfall. Much lighter showers may impact southern Rio de Janeiro and immediate neighboring areas of northeastern Sao Paulo and far southeastern Minas Gerais, but resulting rainfall is not likely to be very great.

Concern over coffee conditions will stay moderately high over the next ten days as significant rain continues absent from the forecast. The most important coffee production areas from northeastern Sao Paulo into Sul de Minas, Rio de Janeiro, Cerrado Mineiro and Zona de Mata will go without significant rain. The only period favorable for rainfall in any key coffee areas will be Monday and Tuesday when showers produce up to 10 millimeters of rain from northeastern Sao Paulo to southern Sul de Minas and southern Rio de Janeiro.

The lack of rain continues to apply pressure on recently flowered trees. Those that pollinated successfully will need rain soon so that cherry setting occurs favorably and to avoid the potential of cherry aborting if conditions get too dry. The loss of early season cherries is not very likely. The stressful environment might help some of the trees that flowered in early to mid-September that may not have experienced successful pollination to set new blossom buds for a possible second flowering when seasonal rains finally arrive.

Amazon River Basin moisture continues lacking voracity and until a more normal buildup of moisture and greater shower and thunderstorm activity evolves the potential for soaking rains in key coffee production areas will remain low. High pressure aloft over northeastern Brazil is forcing what little tropical moisture is present in the Amazon River Basin to occur mostly in far western parts of the region.

World Weather, Inc. still believes improved weather will occur in the very last days of October and first days of November.

Daily high temperatures through the next week to ten days will continue mostly in the 30s Celsius with extremes pushing near 40 in the north periodically. Central Bahia and northern Minas Gerais will be hottest. In contrast, some middle and upper 20-degree highs will occur periodically along the coast from Sao Paulo to Bahia. Lowest temperatures at night will be in the teens and lower 20s.

Olam Sees Shrinking Coffee Supplies Before Brazil’s Next Harvest
2015-10-06 By Isis Almeida

(Bloomberg) -- The global supply of coffee will shrink before the next crop in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, as consumers erode stockpiles and new buyers enter the market, according to food trader Olam International Ltd.
Two years of shortages mean global inventories will keep falling for at least the next six months, said Rajat Kumar, a vice president of coffee trading and Dwayne Schmidt, a senior trader at Olam. Index funds will return to the market as buyers in January and declining stockpiles may lead some traders to close bets on lower prices, Schmidt said.
Coffee prices fell 23 percent this year and data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission show speculators have been betting on lower prices in almost every week since March as a decline in Brazil’s currency boosted the appeal of exports. Schmidt said recently the main buyers have only been roasters.
"There’s certainly evidence that all of the most bearish factors have been factored into the market," Schmidt said Friday in an interview in Basel, Switzerland. "We do see a situation in which there will be new buyers. Recently it has only been the roasters that have been buying."

Coffee Speculators

Global coffee supplies fell short of demand last season and another shortage is expected in 2015-16, Olam said, forecasting the cumulative deficit at almost 10 million bags. Inventories in warehouses monitored by ICE Futures U.S. fell to 1.985 million bags earlier this month, the lowest since 2012, according to exchange data compiled by Bloomberg.
Money managers have gone from holding a net-long position, which represent bets on higher prices, of 15,287 contracts at the beginning of the year to a net-short of 29,040 lots in the latest week, CFTC data show.
Supplies from the new crop in Brazil will help ease the global tightness when the beans enter the market around August 2016, according to Olam. Farmers will probably gather a record crop for the robusta and arabica varieties as the flowering
before next year’s harvest was "excellent," according to Kumar and Schmidt.
Flowers develop into the cherries containing the coffee beans. Arabica coffee is the kind favored for specialty drinks such as those by Starbucks Corp., while robusta is used in instant coffee and espresso.

Alleviate Stress

"We’ve had two years of consecutive deficits totaling close to 10 million bags, but if everything goes well, then the next record Brazil crop could alleviate the stress," Kumar said, adding that the additional supplies won’t be enough to offset
entire deficit. Coffee trading is currently correlated to currencies and it would take a big event, such as unfavorable weather, or stabilization of the Brazilian real to break that pattern, Kumar said.
"The next big thing will be something that surprises, the rains don’t start in Indonesia, the rains stop in Brazil, the rains don’t come in Colombia," Schmidt said. "These are all very important areas of production where there are question marks. In all these areas, the most optimistic scenario have been factored in."