Gustav is looking ugly but Hannah may be even worse, especially for Florida!

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This just in from Bloomberg…

Rigs Evacuated

“Several thousand” of the almost 20,000 workers on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, about a quarter of whom are needed to maintain production, were to be evacuated, Ted Falgout, director of Port Fourchon in Louisiana, said in an interview yesterday. The port is a staging area for rig workers.

“There’s going to be disruption in oil production next week in the Gulf of Mexico, especially the rigs off Louisiana,” AccuWeather’s Walker said. “Even in Texas they’re going to have to take protective measures.”

Crude oil for October delivery rose as much as $1.10, or 0.9 percent, to $119.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded at $118.80 at 10:17 a.m. London time.

U.S. oil and gas platforms and pipelines are most concentrated in the waters south of Louisiana and east of Texas. Offshore fields in the Gulf accounted for 26 percent of total U.S. crude production and 12 percent of natural gas output in April, according to the U.S. Energy Department.”

Now here are some updated comments form farmers on AG web. It underscores the dry conditions I have been talking about.

“Here’s a sampling of what some folks are saying:

8/27 – Mclean, Livingston counties, Illinois: Very dry! Only .3 rain in august. Beans are turning prematurely and the double crop beans are actually dying. Corn is fired all the way up and ears hanging down. We are getting ready to put this one away and look forward to sky high inputs for 2009. Corn is looking to be a little below average and beans are really suffering-they will be well below average. Neighbors are beginning to wonder what happened to elite germplasm seed that could take the stress?

8/27 – Southwest Ontario: What a year, to put it into short sentence, this is a record year for the books and I hope I’ll never see it again! June was the wettest month on record, July was next to the driest month on record, and Aug will be going down as the driest month on record. The crops? I need not have to expand upon it, you know the story………..

8/27 – South Central Minnesota: Very dry, corn and beans have really shut down in the last week. Lots of beans are drying up on the lighter soil or leaves turning over. Since the crops are 2-3 weeks behind we need rain and warm weather to finish them off. Started corn harvest last year Sept. 12 last year and neighbors did some beans on the 9th. Be lucky to do any in Sept. this year.”