Nearly 5.5 years ago, on March 2, 2007, I told approximately 200 attendees of the Harris-Mann Climatology Seminar held at The Coeur d'Alene Resort that, "the nation's midsection would soon see the return of the 'Dust Bowl Days' of the 1930s."

I told these attendees that corn would top $8-a-bushel by 2010-12. We would see wheat reach $12 to $15-a-bushel and soybeans would probably top $18-a-bushel. I predicted that crude oil would soon top $100-a-barrel, which it did less than a year later during the start of the worst global depression since the 1930s. Just Wednesday of this past week, NOAA announced that July 2012 set a record high for any month since at least 1895 with an average U.S. high temperature of 77.7 degrees, which topped the previous all-time monthly record of 77.4 degrees in July of 1936.

I also predicted back in 2007 that many ranchers would be forced to prematurely liquidate their cattle herds between 2010 and 2013 due to the critical lack of feed sources like corn and hay from withered pastures. This has already occurred across much of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico following several years in-a-row with parching drought. Feeder cattle this past winter of 2011-12 exceeded my earlier prediction of an all-time record $1.60-a-pound. Meat prices nationwide by the summer of 2013 will likely 'skyrocket' in the supermarkets, especially if the record drought doesn't end soon in the Great Plains and the western areas of the Midwest.

This torrid weather hit the U.S. at a time when grain stock piles were unusually low, further increasing upward pressure on prices. (We have no 'Joseph of Biblical Days.')

We North Americans can expect to see more costly food in the next 12 to 18 months that will exceed the price spikes of 2007 and 2010. Even worse, hundreds of millions of people will continue to go hungry in many developing nations that depend upon the U.S. to at least partially feed them.

The 'good news' is that at least 85 percent of the U.S. farmers and ranchers have crop insurance and won't go under, thanks to these policies. These insured farmers will receive high market prices for their destroyed crops, which will actually mean unusually hefty profits from this drought disaster.

The 'bad news' is that U.S. taxpayers can expect to foot a good portion of the insurance bill, because our government currently subsidizes much of the cost of private insurance similar to the National Flood Insurance Program.

Crop insurance companies will not be able to pay all these loss claims so, once again, the American taxpayer will be 'on the hook.'

Just how big will this drought disaster bill be? Well, last year's losses exceeded $11 billion, thanks to a devastating drought and extreme heat pattern in Texas, Oklahoma and the Desert Southwest. As I also predicted many months in advance, this huge drought pattern in 2012 spread 1,000 miles eastward to the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and was centered in the 'heart' of the Midwest Corn and Soybean Belt in Indiana and Illinois in June and July.

Fortunately for we residents of weather-blessed North Idaho in 'Camelot,' we had plenty of rain in record amounts during this spring and early summer of 2012, the 'opposite' extreme weatherwise to the parching drought in the heartland.

I'm expecting that this worst drought and heat pattern since the 1930s will eventually cost us in coming months, perhaps years, more than $20 billion, easily exceeding the extensive drought losses of 1936, 1988, 2010 and 2011.

To answer a Press subscriber's question, I was able to predict the current parching drought east of the Rockies several years in advance, because I continue to closely follow our long-term climate cycles dating back to 2,500 B.C. and beyond. (See our enclosed chart and www.LongRangeWeather.comfor more weather details.)

As I've pointed out many times in the past five decades or so, our SUN is the GREAT WEATHER-MAKER, the SUPREME CLIMATE-CHANGER for the entire solar system, including the Earth.

Mankind certainly doesn't 'create' these recurring solar-induced weather cycles. We just make things worse with our increasingly polluting ways and extremely poor stewardship of our planet's dwindling resources.

I'm all for GOING GREEN whenever and wherever possible. It certainly is a step in the right direction.

North Idaho weather outlook

We hadn't received any measurable rain in nearly three full weeks across much of the Inland Empire, including North Idaho, as of this Thursday, Aug. 9 writing.

Temperatures likewise turned quite hot, reaching a toasty 95 degrees in town on Tuesday, Aug. 7. Our overnight lows have generally been in the lower 60s or the upper 50s, not too bad for sleeping, except at times, when the levels of humidity increase.

We now have a weak 'El Nino' in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. This event has 'pumped up' the high pressure ridge that's developed across the Inland Northwest.

We still could see an isolated thunderstorm or two during the next 45 days or so, but most of the heaviest precipitation should remain in the mountain regions to the east and south of Kellogg.

The 2012 edition of the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo still looks mostly dry and warm. There could be a stray shower late in the event, but it won't be enough rain to muddy-up the parking areas. My main concern is the 'heat factor,' which tends to cut down overall attendance at the fair. Time will tell.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com

Weekly Weather Almanac

• Week's warmest temperature: 95 degrees on Aug. 7

• Week's coldest temperature: 52 degrees on Aug. 10

• Weekly precipitation: 0.00 inches

• Precipitation month to date: 0.00 inches

• Normal precipitation month to date: 0.41 inches

• Precipitation month to date last year: 0.00 inches

• Precipitation year to date: 29.09 inches

• Normal precipitation year to date: 15.28 inches

• Precipitation last year to date: 22.64 inches

• Normal annual precipitation: 26.77 inches

• Total precipitation last year: 31.62 inches

• Precipitation predicted this year: 35.93 inches

• Precipitation predicted in 2013: 28.40 inches

• Record annual precipitation: 38.77 inches in 1996

• All-time least annual precipitation: 15.18 inches in 1929

Readings taken week ending Sunday, 4 p.m., Aug. 12