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IRI Climate Information Digest - Impacts February 1999

CLIMATE AND HEALTH

  • Recently reported research has suggested a link between El Niño and occurrences of African Horse Sickness in southern Africa.  The relationship is attributed to increased populations of an insect known as the biting midge, which is thought to be responsible for spread of the disease.

HAZARDS/THREATS
  • Excessive snowfall from Switzerland eastward through Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, southern Ukraine  and southward into parts of Bulgaria and Greece has been responsible for avalanches,  power and telephone outages and the isolation of several small communities. The excess snowfall raises the threat of springtime flooding.  Some early flooding has already been experienced in Hungary.
  • Heavy rainswere associated with local flooding in the Philippines.
  • Several hundreds of people were evacuated from potential flood hazard areas of Queensland, Australia in response to tropical cyclone Rona.

AGRICULTURE

  • Winter wheat regions of Ukraine and Belarus continued to experience unseasonably mild and favorable temperatures.
  • Generally favorable conditions for winter grains were also experienced over Western Europe with the exception of very dry conditions in Spain.
  • Dry conditions characterized much of the winter grain areas in Morocco until significant rains in the last week of February.
  • Much of Australia experienced generally beneficial La Niña related rains, but locally heavy rains in Queensland hampered summer harvests. Extremely heavy rains associated with tropical cyclone Rona were responsible for flooding in sugar cane producing areas and raised concerns about production.
  • Heavy rains are expected to delay the coffee harvest in Indonesia.

FISHERIES

  • Industrial landings in Peru and northern Chile improved slightly during the month of February.  Due to a seasonal ban on anchovy and sardine in Northern Peru, catch was made up primarily of mackerel, while southern Peru and northern Chile landings were composed of adult anchovy. As of Feb. 28, accumulated landings for Peru were 925,698 metric tons (compared to 130,506 mt for the same period in 1998) and 258,561 mt for northern Chile (compared to 92,174 for the same period in 1998). Anecdotal reports are pessimistic regarding the rapid recuperation of the anchovy stocks. Despite improved catch, however, low prices and surplus fishmeal stock held by producers and traders has exacerbated the financial crisis the industry is currently facing.

Material for this portion of the IRI Climate Information Digest has been extracted from the IRI Climate Data Library, the NOAA NCEP Climate Prediction Center, the USDA/NOAA Joint Agricultural Weather Facility and the Fishmeal Exporters Organization. Additional information was obtained from the CHGE, and the UN/OCHA.