I can’t get going on a Monday without coffee, so yesterday I clicked onto Weatherbell Site to look at Dr. Ryan Maue’s temperature maps from the GFS model, and clicked on South America to see if the forecasts were right, and they had frost on Sunday morning. The pink in the very south of Brazil shows they did.
This is news because it is only the start of Autumn down there. It is more usual to get frost in the middle of their winter, which is July. This is like the orange groves of Florida getting frost in October, rather than January.
I got curious about the GFS forecast, so I clicked ahead through the next few days, and could see the early cold snap faded away. New Antarctic cold threatens at the bottom of the maps, but is curved to the east by the roaring Antarctic westerlies.
MONDAY MORNING TUESDAY MORNING
WEDNESDAY MORNING
It has been suggested some of the farmers in Brazil have tried to grow coffee too far south. The same thing happened in the USA when some tried to grow oranges too far north in Florida, and even in Georgia. So one needs to check the map to see if this frost actually reached north to where coffee grows.
It looks to me like the frosts were just south of where the coffee is grown. But, if Global Warming was real, they should be able to grow coffee further south. Frost on the first of May, when the trees are just blooming, seems a good reason to avoid planting further south.
Something to think about, as I sip my second cup.