weather, page-25

We are less than a week away from the all-important almond pollination in California, and thus it would seem that the time might be ripe for a closer look at how things are shaping up on the west coast of the USA.

Currently, the two week forecast for the major almond growing regions of California indicates that there will be little or no rain for the first week of the bloom, which is good news for the Californian growers. They certainly wouldn't want any weather-related complications at this time of the year.

Heavy rainfall at some point in the almond bloom period wouldn't be entirely unexpected, however. As has been mentioned here recently, California saw some very heavy precipitation at the end of last year, which added substantially to the Sierra snowpack.

On that topic, it might be an idea to wheel out the relevant chart, updated to illustrate the progress of the 21-22 Californian water year. Remember, the water-year in California runs from September to October of the following year.



As is depicted by the orange bar on the chart above, California experienced a massive downpour in December, with nearly 100 mm of precipitation (just over 3.5 inches) recorded in Fresno, the almond growing heartland of the state.

Yet despite that massive end-of-year dump, it is curious to observe that the sum total of rainfall recorded so far isn't yet even at 50% of an average water year.

The culprit here is the unusually dry January: indeed, the first month of 2022 was the driest January seen in Fresno county since 1948, with not even a millimetre of precipitation recorded for the month.

This has caused some alarm. The extract below is taken from a report in the Fresno Bee last week, discussing the anomalously dry start to the year:

...Red flags are going up for farmers, firefighters, and everyone else in the central San Joaquin Valley after January officially tied the record for the driest on record in the region, and a once-massive Sierra snowpack continues to melt away.

“It’s not good,” said meteorologist Jeff Barlow of the National Weather Service in Hanford. Only a trace of rain fell during January, the least since 1948, which he added was “terrible.”

He pointed out that February should be the wettest part of the season, and no storms are forecast for the next 10 days...

So, from deluge, to drought?

Probably too early to make that call. February and March are historically the 2nd and 3rd wettest months in California, so at this point it could go either way.

Even so, at this stage, it looks like there is about a 50-50 chance that California could be in for another year of sub-par rainfall.

With the SHV share price currently hovering near the bottom of the trading range of the past three years, we could be in for a significant share price re-rating in the next three months if California's spring rains disappoint, as it would mean yet another year of drought.

Of course, there is another danger for growers: a sudden deluge during the pollination period could potentially to wreck the crop.

Even though Self-pollinating almond varieties are becoming more popular in California, thus reducing growers dependency on bees, extreme weather is still a worry for farmers, as strong winds and heavy rain can knock flowers and buds off the tree, and sometimes even knock over entire trees. Excessive rain post-pollination also tends to be associated with disappointing crops.

Californian growers will be hoping for a path somewhere in-between these too extremes, neither too wet, nor too dry.

Whatever the outcome, one thing is sure: the weather in the Golden State over the next few months will dictate the fortunes of California farmers and Select Harvest shareholders alike.

So much for the conditions in California: what about Australia?

As most readers would probably be aware, there has been some significant rainfall in Australia over the past few weeks, particularly in parts of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The rain mostly bypassed the South Australian almond orchards, though the orchards along the Murray in Euston and Robinvale recorded around 50mm of rain, which was well above the January average.

However, up in the Riverina it absolutely bucketed down, with Griffith recording a phenomenal 172 mm of rain last month, and even though Hillston saw only half as much, even this was substantial. The heaviest precipitation in both locales occurred on the last days of January.

The heavy rainfall in the Riverina brings to mind an old painting from the 19th Century, 'The flood in the Darling' by WC Piguenit. It depicts a major flood that took place in western NSW after the named river burst its banks in 1890.


When I look at this painting, especially the ominous clouds looming above, I can't help but recall that just a few years before this devastating flood in NSW, there was a major Volcanic eruption just across the Tasman Sea, in New Zealand.

In 1886, the devastating Mount Tarawera eruption on the north island of New Zealand was the most powerful eruption ever recorded in that country to date.

Major volcanic eruptions seem to have a significant influence on weather patterns, and I suspect that the terrible 1886 eruption in New Zealand inadvertently charged up the weather in the successive years in the region, and probably had a hand in the floods that inundated parts of NSW in 1890.

The relevance of this to the here and now is that in the middle of last month, just North of New Zealand in an island in the middle of Tonga, there was a volcanic eruption of a similar magnitude to that of the 1886 eruption.

The exact scale of the recent volcanic eruption is still being estimated, however it is currently believed that the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption was the largest volcanic eruption since Pinatubo, over thirty years ago. Certainly, at the very least this Tongan volcanic eruption would be of a similar magnitude to the 1886 eruption in New Zealand.

We know that in the wake of the 1886 event, there was increased precipitation and major flooding in parts of NSW. One weather station not far from Hillston, the Binya Post Office, has been recording data since the late 19th century, and the data it has captured illustrates this pattern.

The records from this weather station illustrate a distinctive post-and pre eruption rainfall pattern: the years 1887, 1889, 1890 and 1891 all saw well above average rainfall, whereas 1884 and 1881 were both quite dry (the data recorded for the years 1882, 1883 and 1885 is patchy and incomplete).

So, I would tentatively suggest that the recent volcanic eruption in Tonga might have 'loaded the dice' in favour of heavy rainfall in Australia over the next few years, and I suspect that of Select's growing areas, the Riverina region might be the most at risk. Possibly, we could even see another 'flood in the Darling'.

This probably isn't something shareholders need to worry about in the short-term, but it is a risk that Select shareholders should be conscious of over the next few years.

But in the meantime, over the weeks and months ahead, the focus of our attention should probably be on the skies of California.