We need to begin with an article reader Hank out on the Big Island cited overnight. Over on Zero Hedge: Strongest El Nino In 75 Years Sets Off Food Supply-Chain Alarm Bells.

This is not new to our thinking around here as you know.  Dust Bowls come and go. But from the economics and investment standpoint, my late mentor Robin Landry always said “A Drought is what turns a recession into a depression.”  That’s the SRoT (Simple Rule of Thumb) version.  Here’s the no schiznit drill-down:

The old economic truth hidden in weather records is that drought does not have to “cause” a depression all by itself. It weakens the real economy under the paper one (the recession).

Result? In agrarian or food-sensitive systems, dry spells cut yields, raise food prices, force livestock liquidation, stress farm credit, and then move outward into banks, railroads, merchants, migration, and politics. That is why the Dust Bowl remains the cleanest U.S. example: drought began in the early 1930s and worsened already-poor Depression conditions, with Great Plains farmers hit hardest and many forced onto relief. NBER work on the Dust Bowl later found large, lasting damage to agricultural land values and revenues in the worst-hit counties.

The 1840s are worth handling carefully. The U.S. depression after the Panic of 1837 lasted into the mid-1840s, but that was mainly a banking, land, cotton, and credit collapse rather than a simple drought story. Europe’s “Hungry Forties,” though, give the weather-food-politics link more directly: the subsistence crisis of 1845–1850 saw poor harvests, potato failure, soaring food prices, industrial distress, and unrest. In other words, when food systems were close to the edge, crop trouble did not stay on the farm. It walked into the city as wage pressure, riot risk, revolution risk, and falling confidence.

The larger 19th-century warning comes to us from the Long Depression era. From 1876 to 1878, the so-called Great Drought—tied to one of the strongest El Niño events in the modern record—brought simultaneous droughts across Asia, Brazil, and Africa, causing crop failures and famine on a staggering scale. Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory summarizes estimates of 30 million to 60 million deaths worldwide; climate research describes the event as concurrent multiyear droughts that catalyzed widespread crop failures.

The deal point to watch in coming months is dirt (or dust) simple: a recession is financial weather, but drought is physical weather. When the physical layer fails, the financial layer discovers it was leveraged against rain.

Understanding the Numbers

We will keep the “reading inputs” simple.  Here’s what the Drought.gov site puts up on a weekly basis:

The key things to know are:

• If you include “abnormally dry” in your drought thinking then bone-dry covers 57.9% of the country already.
• When you go through maps (here National Current Conditions | Drought.gov) realize that Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas – so think CONUS maps and numbers.
• Then bookmark the NOAA Climate Prediction Center: Climate Prediction Center.,  We are guided by the one and three month precip maps – which are yelling “Dry fall coming!” – but tempered with the 6-10 Day (precip) map.

What does this mean for us on the ‘personally actionable’ side? Rain likely in the next week but then going dry into early to mid fall. Silver lining?  Our long-term bet on swamp coolers to cool the greenhouse is already starting to pay off. (Took its sweet time, though!)

Eyeing commodities that will matter this fall will be energy prices and the major grains (corn & wheat) because between them, that’ll drive inflationary pressures this fall.

Already, though, the signs and sigils are shaping up: We expect the Fed will be raising rates before the end of the year as the weather disaster firms up.

WW III Weekend?

Looks to us like “weekend war modulation” is in place, with the West able to balance wars and markets through temporal partitioning.  Here’s how that works:

The Middle East is now in full escalation mode. The fragile US-Iran ceasefire completely collapsed overnight as American forces conducted a second consecutive night of heavy strikes, hitting roughly 90 targets across southern Iran — including air defenses, missile and drone storage sites, naval assets, and locations near the Bushehr nuclear plant and the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran immediately retaliated with missiles and drones aimed at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, while Jordan intercepted several projectiles. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has ground nearly to a halt, oil prices are spiking hard, and both sides are trading accusations while technical nuclear talks somehow continue in the background.

Remember – since we were just talking drought – that Iran has a very strong hand to play if they go after regional desalination plants – which could drive an “instant diaspora” of 20-million plus humans.

On the northern front of WWIII, Russia launched another large overnight missile and drone barrage against Ukraine, pounding Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv with ballistic missiles and waves of drones. Ukrainian officials reported multiple civilian deaths (around a dozen killed and roughly 100 injured across the country in the 24-hour period). Ukraine hit back hard, striking Russian oil refineries, pipeline stations, and multiple “shadow fleet” tankers in the Black Sea and near Crimea. Kremlin sources say Putin is rejecting peace pressure and leaning toward further escalation.

The pointer on this front of WWIII is that a range of future-aware predictors (remote viewing and paranormal plus astrological types) have that regional power issue (Poland through Baltics) or an attack on the Ukraine power station Russia holds.  This is your “Chernobyl II” stressor.

Result?  This weekend is setup for another WWIII blast: Two major theaters are simultaneously boiling over with direct great-power involvement, energy infrastructure under fire, and the world’s most critical oil chokepoint effectively closed. With markets closed for the weekend, leaders are often slower to de-escalate, and with both Iran and Russia already in retaliation mode, the next 48–72 hours look like prime conditions for miscalculation, proxy activation (Hezbollah, Houthis, etc.), or a sudden larger strike package that could drag in more players.

The sadly regular late-week/early-weekend escalation window is wide open again. About the only question is whether another pseudo-peace can be successfully narrated ahead of the Monday market open.  Next, we’ll wander over to…

The News Compressor

Even with the two major fronts of WW III discounted, there’s still plenty of high-level theater down here on the planet’s surface:

What changed overnight is the economic-warning layer moved ahead of the military headlines. Deloitte now expects U.S. back-to-school spending to fall 6 percent to $30.4 billion, with average spending slipping to $557 per child; 57 percent of surveyed consumers expect the economy to worsen during the next six months, the highest share since 2020. That is an early read on household caution before the major July retail data arrives. Necessity-spending compression — Confidence 82.

At the same time, oil eased Friday but remained headed for a roughly 5–6 percent weekly gain, leaving transportation, farming, plastics, and consumer prices exposed to another fuel-cost pulse. U.S. technology futures weakened ahead of SK Hynix’s unusually large American listing, setting up a fresh test of whether AI enthusiasm can absorb another major block of chip-related equity. AI-capital recycling — Confidence 76.

Separately, Microsoft issued a patch for a newly disclosed Defender zero-day dubbed “RoguePlanet.” The domestic disaster sweep found continuing extreme-heat warnings but no newly verified overnight U.S. incident meeting the scan’s three-death or line-of-duty threshold.”

That’s not a particularly cheerful outlook, but today is certainly worth taking off early.  The only remotely useful number pending is this afternoon’s Baker-Hughes rig count.  Might go so far as to make it a “four dayer” because Monday’s dance card has an afternoon Treasury statement before Tuesday’s CPI report.

At the mention of dances, Fedster Kevin will be talking Tuesday morning (after CPI) so let’s see how he dances around inflation, the legacy “2 percent Fed goal” and the free money White House.  It may not be graceful; our bet is on amusing to scary.  But, we shall see.  Our money is on rate hike before year end.

Our Weekend News Forecast?

Bring your own umbrella and targeting packages.

12–96 Hour Outlook

Into tonight (next 12–24h): Severe thunderstorms with large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding potential expand across central/southern High Plains, eastern Kansas, Missouri, Mid-Mississippi/Ohio/Tennessee Valleys and Appalachians. Local infrastructure/power outages and travel delays likely. Confidence high on setup; outcome shifts with storm tracks.

Friday–Saturday (12–48h): Harris County DA and federal probes into Houston ICE shooting may release more evidence or statements; family/LULAC reward and protests could escalate local civil tension. Watch for body-cam policy updates or congressional reaction. Confidence medium; political amplification changes trajectory.

Next 24–72h: Election Assistance Commission vacancy effects surface as midterm planning accelerates; potential lawsuits or temporary appointments. Confidence medium-high given timing.

Weekend (48–72h): Palm Beach (now Trump) airport signage/transition continues; first flights under new branding. Local Florida political signaling only. Low operational risk. Well, except for the pop-up afternoon thunderstorms over north-central Florida. Been there, been vectored to avoid.

Around the Ranch: Winter Radio Planning

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Notwithstanding, this winter will be one of the best-ever in my now 62 years of ham radio. Honestly, though, the build is taking more time than expected.

• The new Hermes Lite 2.0 is still safely in a “pending projects” box in the shop.
• Right next to the two (kw) Johnson Matchboxes that will feed a north-south doublet off the tower this winter.  Plus another 600-foot longwire experiment.
• And with the Rycom 6040 working great, I should be able to use 630 meters for some CW work this winter.  A long (and a bit technical) discussion of using a selective voltmeter as a calibrated measuring tool to assess field strength at 4+ wavelengths out…nope, not with toast, thanks.

Mostly my plan is to spend more time “pounding brass” because – and this may sound odd – there’s a chance it can increase Alzheimer’s resistance.  Seriously:

This is because Morse demands a high level of mental acuity: it is a demanding multi-modal skill that recruits working memory, rapid auditory-visual mapping, attention networks, and fine motor sequencing—processes that drive neuroplasticity. One neuroimaging study found that adults who learned Morse code showed measurable microstructural changes in the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus (a white-matter tract linking visual and language areas), indicating that the brain physically rewires itself in response to the new skill. More broadly, a large body of evidence shows that lifelong mental activity builds “cognitive reserve”—the brain’s capacity to maintain function despite accumulating Alzheimer’s pathology.

In the Rush Memory and Aging Project, older adults with the highest levels of cognitively stimulating activities (reading, writing, games, etc.) developed clinical Alzheimer’s disease an average of five years later than those with the lowest levels, even when brain pathology was comparable. The mechanism appears to be strengthened neural networks and greater synaptic density that allow the brain to compensate longer before symptoms emerge. Thus Morse code, like other complex lifelong learning activities, is a practical way to exercise the very circuits that delay cognitive decline.

Truth be told, this “use it or lose it” has also been a driver behind writing here and keeping Morse up to 25 WPM, or higher.

The Sideband Dream Update:  I made an offer for $550 (like I did in the dream) and the seller of the Drake TR-5 countered with $600.  I responded with the $550, though because THAT was the “don’t go above” limit in my dream.

Honestly, I don’t need another radio:  There are dozens of radios to pick from in my collection. I like the Hallicrafters SR-400 for general messing about.  The Ten-Tec Omni VII is for serious DX work.  And for plain fun on Morse?  The GSB-100 driving the Thunderbolt with a choice between a Drake 2B/Q and the 2C/Q next to it is one of those “high class problems” to have.

Anyway, with the Jupiter and the TS-590—also a good CW DX machine—it is instructive to watch how the universe works out oddities such as ‘day residue’ in dreams. (Seriously: I have never been pitched ownership of anything in a dream before!)

Write when you get rich – but smile: it looks like the last lawnmowing of the summer (until the lawn wakes up from dormant around Labor Day) could be at hand after late weekend rains here.

Then heat’s going to be an issue. For everyone.

Write when you chill,

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