Three More Years of Weather Extremes? An 1800’s Farmer Says Yes

If you’re a believer in long-term weather cycles, a farmer from the 1800s, an Iowa University professor, and a Canadian commodity analyst all believe that we’re in the final three years of an 89-year weather cycle. According to the Brenner Cycle, recently observed extreme weather events will continue for another three years and then return to relative normal in 2025.

Samuel Brenner, a farmer who lived in the mid 1800’s discovered that the width of tree rings can tell the long-term history of annual wet and dry seasons. A century-and-a-half later, his research method is still viewed as a natural history record of seasonal weather trends.

Moe Agostino, a Canadian agricultural commodity risk analyst, hosts an annual crops tour across the farm belt of Ontario. Last year, a guest on that tour, Dr. Elwynn Taylor, a climatologist and meteorologist with Iowa State University, had studied tree rings going back 400 years. He believes the Benner Cycle describes an 89-year drought cycle that culminates in a six-year sub-set period before the long-term cycle begins again.  

The current six-year sub-set period started in 2019 and will continue to cause crop shortfalls until about 2025.

“The Brenner Cycle is a long-term weather cycle focused on tree-rings. You know, the width of a tree- ring will tell you whether it was a dry year or lots of moisture. Dr. Elwynn Taylor from Iowa State University has gone back over 400 years. He has come up with this 89-year drought cycle. The last one was in the 1930’s that peaked in 1936. So, it’s a six-year cycle, it started in 2019. This is the third year. Should peak sometime in 2025. That’s when Mother Nature will allow the globe to over-produce.”

Agostino says current weather events do correlate with the mid 1930’s dust bowl years that were not exclusive to North America. Since Professor Taylor’s discussion last fall, Agostino has looked at heat, resulting droughts, and other severe weather events in various parts of the world.

“Morocco’s very dry, Pakistan and India just experienced 120-degree days. The southern part of Brazil and Argentina experiencing 113-degree weather, their normal temperature is 85 degrees. You go back to last year, the western Canadian Prairies. Here comes a heat-dome that came out of nowhere and fried half of the crops. It just goes on, and on, and on.”

So, according to Professor Taylor and Agostino, weather patterns will continue to be extreme for the next few years. But if the Brenner Cycle is valid, 2025 should see a return to more normal patterns. But until then, both dry and wet will be the norm.

“Even though this pattern is a drier pattern, in the winters you can get extreme snowfall, or extreme cold temperatures. Like last year, when it was East versus West, where the east was just getting constantly getting moisture day after day, and created a lot of disease. So, when you put the whole thing together you go to a new normal. But it may not be until 2025.”