SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Brazil will likely experience a moderate El Nino by the end of the year, bringing steady rain to the country’s main grain producing regions and sustained drought in the arid north, the national meteorological institute, Inmet, said. Inmet meteorologist Fabricio Daniel dos Santos Silva said six consecutive quarters of warming sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean “indicate an El Nino event of weak intensity, tending to pass into a moderate stage by the end of the year”.
El Nino can lead to scorching weather across Asia and east Africa, but heavy rains and floods in parts of South America. It caused food prices to surge in 2009. In Brazil, a country the size of the continental United States and a top global supplier of sugar, coffee, beef and soybeans, the impact of El Nino’s return will likely be varied.
Dos Santos said in an email late on Monday that El Nino characteristics were already affecting Brazil’s semi-arid northeast, where a severe drought began in late 2014 in one of the country’s poorest regions and is already considered high intensity.
He said the center-west, home to the top soybean producing state of Mato Grosso, will likely see above-average rains by the end of the year, a forecast farmers who will plant their 2015/16 soybean crops in September are celebrating.
