Feb 02, 2011

Australian cyclone sends sugar prices to 30-year high

03:54 PM

The ferocious tropical storm hammering northeastern Australia has sent sugar prices to a 30-year high, and traders said they could go higher. Australia is the world's third-largest sugar exporter.

March futures reached 34.79 cents a pound in New York and $834.70 a metric ton in London, levels not seen since the early 1980s, The Australian writes. This year could be the third straight shortfall in global production. Australia's output, 7% of the world's total, has already been hit hard by massive flooding.

Cyclone Yasi hit North Queensland early today with winds up to 186 mph and waves almost 30-feet high. Yasi, a Category 5 storm similar to Hurricane Katrina, is "the largest tropical storm to strike Australia since Europeans first settled there," the Guardian says. It's one of the strongest on record.

A Reuters reporter said the storm "sounds like a roaring train going over the top of the house."

Cyclones are the Southern Hemisphere's version of hurricanes; they just spin clockwise, the opposite of their Northern Hemisphere counterparts.

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