Important Issues 

More than 100 world leaders will promise to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, in the COP26 climate summit's first major deal. 

Weather forecasting is an important science. Accurate forecasting can help to save lives and minimise property damage. It’s also crucial for agriculture, allowing farmers to track when it’s best to plant or helping them protect their crops.

Johan van den Berg -Independent Agricultural Meteorologist (M.Sc Agric, Agricultural Meteorology, UFS)

 Drought continues to prevail from southwestern Canada’s Prairies through the entire western half of the United States.

Global maize production is worth billions of dollars annually and is key to global food security because it’s a staple food for billions of people. Most maize production relies on natural rainfall, making it vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns.

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted.

Climate and agricultural conditions No 63 – May/June 2022 -Johan van den Berg -Independent Agricultural Meteorologist (M.Sc Agric, Agricultural Meteorology, UFS),

The weather is yet again a top-of-mind issue in South Africa's agriculture.

Global heating could become "catastrophic" for humanity if temperature rises are worse than many predict or cause cascades of events we have yet to consider, or indeed both.

Summary

 We are about a month away from the start of the 2022/23 summer crop season.

We are about a month away from the start of the 2022/2023 summer crop season. Farmers in SA’s eastern regions, which includes the eastern Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, will start planting by mid-October. This will primarily be summer grains and oilseeds.

More widespread rain expected More rain is expected over most of the country during the next few days, with November starting out much wetter and cooler over the interior than October. Again, increased cloud cover together with periods of widespread showers or thundershowers will keep maximum temperatures on the mild side, in contrast to the hot and dry weather during the first half of October.

The sea surface in the tropical Pacific has been cooler than the long-term average (1991–2020, currently) since mid-2020, and it remains so.