Like things aren’t bad enough with areas of the Midwest under water, other areas needing water and less heat, regions under seige from an active tornado season, and major fires in California, now your grower-customers can expect a stormier hurricane season this year.
The first day of June marked the official start of the 2008 hurricane season, and if the experts are correct, this season will be somewhat more stormy than the last two seasons and could raise food prices. Experts already are predicting that the current flooding in the Midwest may well triple grocery prices.
The renowned hurricane forecast team at Colorado State University is calling for 15 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin during this year’s hurricane season. Eight of the storms are expected to become hurricanes, with four becoming intense hurricanes with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.
"Conditions in the tropical Atlantic look quite favorable for an active hurricane season," says Phil Klotzbach of the Colorado State hurricane forecast team and the lead author of the forecast. The hurricane forecast team predicts tropical cyclone activity in 2008 will be 160 percent of the average season.
If the busy 2008 hurricane season predicted by experts actually plays out, the major storms could have a dramatic effect on global markets, many of which have already experienced record high prices and wild volatility this year and would be even more vulnerable to a U.S. hurricane scare, says Jim Wyckoff, senior market analyst with www.TraderEducation.com.
Wyckoff believes the first direct impact of any major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico would be on the energy futures markets, with natural gas the first to feel the impact, followed by crude oil.
