NOAA

Moments ago we saw headlines flashing of a major 7.6 magnitude earthquake swaying Mexico City. It turns out the earthquake was even stronger, and according to the USGS is now classified as 7.9. From Reuters: "MEXICO CITY, March 20 (Reuters) - A major 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck near Acapulco on Mexico's Pacific coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Tuesday. Earlier it had been reported at 7.6 magnitude." Luckily, as Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher notes, "Mexican TV reports no major damage in the State of Oaxaca" citing the local governor.

Back in early February, Zero Hedge was among the first to suggest that abnormally warm temperatures and a record hot winter, were among the primary causes for various employment trackers to indicate a better than expected trendline (even as many other components of the economy were declining), in "Is It The Weather, Stupid? David Rosenberg On What "April In January" Means For Seasonal Adjustments." It is rather logical: after all the market is the first to forgive companies that excuse poor performance, or economies that report a data miss due to "inclement" weather. So why should the direction of exculpation only be valid when it serves to justify underperformance? Naturally, the permabullish bias of the media and the commentariat will ignore this critical variable, and attribute "strength" to other factors, when instead all that abnormally warm weather has done is to pull demand forward - whether it is for construction and repair, for part-time jobs, or for retail (and even so retail numbers had been abysmal until the just released expectations meet). Ironically, while everyone else continues to ignore this glaringly obvious observation, it is Bank of America, who as already noted before are desperate to validate a QE as soon as possible (even if their stock has factored in not only the NEW QE, but the NEW QE HD), that expounds on the topic of the impact of record warm weather. In fact, not only that, but BofA makes sense of the fact why GDP growth continues to be in the mid 1% range while various other indicators are representative of much higher growth. The culprit? Global Warming.

Has BP Made “Natural” Oil Seeps In the Gulf Larger?

While last winter every downtick in corporate earnings was promptly "explained away" by executives using the harsh weather excuse, one has heard not a peep from companies on the topic of an abnormally accommodative climate over the past 4 months. And why would they - after all it would mean that any gains, not that there have been many as most companies have reported below average results, have been artificially boosted by one-time events. Needless to say, the mainstream media would rather not touch this topic with a ten foot pole: there is an election to be won and the public can not be disturbed with facts (heaven forbid someone should mention seasonal adjustments - that's a death sentence). Which is why ironically we have to go to Goldman, which as noted recently, has once again turned bearish on the economy for one reason or another, to quantify the impact of the balmy winter. "Reported growth in the CAI is 2.8% for December and 2.9% for January. The estimates here imply that excluding the effect of warm weather, growth would have been 2.5% in December and 2.5-2.7% in January. Note that although January was very warm relative to seasonal norms, this followed a gradual warming in temperatures in October through December. We think our estimates of the weather impact may be on the low side, given that snowfall was also below seasonal norms this year. Lower precipitation can raise activity in some sectors. Our estimates imply that a normalization in temperatures could be a modest headwind to growth over the next few months. The extent of the drag depends on the specification, but a plausible range would be 10-40bp in March if temperatures return to seasonal norms by that month." Looks like Newton was right after all, despite all attempts by central planners to deny reality.

Don't sell those corn futures just yet. Despite last week's surprising announcement by the USDA that there has been much more expansive planting of corn, and other crops, than expected, which in turn set the price of corn tumbling by the most in years, one thing the USDA did not specify is whether said plantings are currently underwater. And if not now, how about in a week or two. Because according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the floods America has experienced so far are nothing compared to what may be coming. "Many rivers in the upper Midwest and northern Plains remain above flood stage, and the threat for more flooding will continue through the summer, forecasters at NOAA’s National Weather Service said today. With rivers running high and soils completely saturated, just a small amount of rain could trigger more flooding, including areas that have already seen major to record flooding. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is forecasting above-normal rain in most of these vulnerable areas in the next two weeks, and above-normal rainfall in much of the region in the one- and three-month outlooks. Adding to the flood threat will be the rising temperatures over the Rockies, which will release the water from the remaining snowpack. “The sponge is fully saturated – there is nowhere for any additional water to go,” said Jack Hayes, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “While unusual for this time of year, all signs point to the flood threat continuing through summer. Forecasters say this season could rival the Great Flood of 1993, when the upper Midwest endured persistent, record-breaking floods from April through August, impacting nine states and causing more than $25 billion in damages (adjusted for inflation)." If indeed this occurs, look for corn, and other softs, to surge to few all time highs, just in time for the much anticipated collapse in food prices to never happen.

The fears of all those who had long believed that the administration, either in collboration with BP or otherwise, had been flagrantly lying about the true situation in the GOM, have been confirmed by The Guardian (via BNO). "A senior U.S. government scientist on Thursday admitted that
three-quarters of the oil that was released into the Gulf of Mexico
after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill was still there, contradicting his
earlier claim that the worst of the spill had passed, the Guardian
reported. Bill Lehr, senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), presented a radically different
picture than the one the White House had presented to the public earlier
this month. He contradicted his own reports from two weeks ago that
suggested that the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down.
“I would say most of that is still in the environment,” Lehr told the
House energy and commerce committee." So just how many other thing are the President and his crony corrupt "scientist experts" lying about?

The economy is in hot water. The oceans are too. Record global water temperatures will mean bigger, more frequent storms this year. There is record hot water in the Gulf of Mexico. The pro forecasters are calling for a lite storm season. The next 45 days will prove them right or wrong.