Australian Wheat Prices Moving Higher On Rains

Extensive downgrades to the Australian wheat crop following severe thunderstorms and rains in the east, are seeing futures prices for hard milling wheat sharply higher over the last few sessions.

Benchmark January ASX milling wheat is A$8/tonne higher today at A$284/tonne, up from a contract low of A$258/tonne set on 23rd October, and A$10/tonne higher on the week.

Lower milling wheat production means more feed wheat, which will also impact on the domestic barley and sorghum markets, traders said.

There was a Severe Thunderstorm Warning current for all districts of QLD except the east coast and all districts of NSW except Sydney, Friday.

The unusually widespread nature of the storms is due to huge amounts of tropical moisture feeding into a trough over the inland.

The storms marched towards the Tasman Sea across the eastern inland, bringing heavy rain and damaging wind gusts.

Ten minute rainfall totals in excess of 10mm in 10 minutes were experienced at Mudgee, Young, Orange, Bathurst, Tamworth, Condobolin, Mt Isa, Townsville, Bombala and Forbes to name a few.

In terms of totals, all districts saw rain. Tamworth topped NSW with 79mm with a storm this morning. In QLD, top falls were over 100m around Tully, thankfully slightly north from Townsville where the heaviest falls (also more than 100mm) occurred yesterday.

The storms also brought severe wind gusts in excess of 90km/h to Winton (93km/h), Griffith (91km/h), and for the second day in a row to Parkes (93km/h), all the highest in nearly a year or more.