What if a flash drought hits the US Corn Belt?
A July flash drought in Iowa/Illinois sends CBOT corn limit-up and drags the broader grain complex — clean long corn/soy, with fertilizer and food-CPI second-order; the semis-water tangent is noise at this size. Rhymes with the 2012 US Corn Belt drought that drove corn to a record ~$8.40. Transmission: lifts feed costs for China/Mexico importers and pressures EM food-importers' FX. Forward: tighter US carryout than 2012's buffer means yields matter more per bushel lost — the convexity to weather headlines is higher.
how we built this number — every step
The class rate is measured from our dated, sourced event library (decade-normalized Poisson — the full table is public at base_rates.json). The variant’s share within its class is the analyst’s editorial call, published so you can audit it. A wider range means thinner precedent. Full recipe: methodology · scored at Reality Check.
The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (gold) over time vs the crowd's (Polymarket, blue), from the past toward the 0–6 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. The gold path is an illustrative reconstruction anchored to today's estimate — real dated events, not a live re-estimate history.
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A July flash drought across Iowa and Illinois slashes US corn yields, sending CBOT corn limit-up for days. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Corn ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.
If it happens — the markets it would move
Biggest moves first. Projected moves are cascade-model priors; hist A–B% = what comparable past events actually did (measured abnormal returns), and model prior · unmeasured marks markets with no analogue backing yet. Tap any market for its price history.
| Market | Class | Projected move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.5% hist +0.69–+1.89% |
| 2 | Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.4% hist +0.35–+1.21% |
| 3 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.24–-0.11% |
| 4 | Natural gas NGon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.3% hist -2.09–+4.95% |
| 5 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -1.07–+0.31% |
| 6 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.8–+0.16% |
| 7 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.22–+0.09% |
| 8 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -2.34–+1.02% |
| 9 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.31–+0.31% |
| 10 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.81–+0.76% |
| 11 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.92–+0.71% |
| 12 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -4.69–+1.4% |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade long on NG/WHEAT: history's small negatives ride 2025 cocoa/gold/copper windows unrelated to grain weather — a Corn Belt flash drought is a direct on-channel grain-and-substitution long.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 40 analogous events (overlap‑weighted), as abnormal returns — market beta stripped, so it's the event's own effect, not the market backdrop. Shown at 20 days (persistent) and 5 days (immediate); ↺ fades = the two horizons disagree. Confidence = consistency × sample × significance.
| Asset | History says | Abnormal (20d · 5d) | Hit | n | Confidence | vs cascade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSM TSM | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -2.3% | 62% | 39 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -2.7% | 62% | 39 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -3.0% | 62% | 40 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.1% · 5d +0.2% | 57% | 40 | 0.12 | · |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.3% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades | 55% | 39 | 0.09 | · |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d -4.3% | 55% | 39 | 0.07 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ASML ASML | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -3.5% | 55% | 39 | 0.07 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CORN CORN | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 53% | 39 | 0.05 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NG NG | LONG | +4.6% · 5d -0.8% ↺ fades | 53% | 39 | 0.05 | ✓ matches cascade |
| WHEAT WHEAT | LONG | +0.3% · 5d +0.1% | 42% | 39 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SMH SMH | SHORT | -0.0% · 5d -1.9% | 50% | 39 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +0.2% · 5d -3.1% ↺ fades | 47% | 39 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| MU MU | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -3.3% | 48% | 40 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d -2.9% | 47% | 39 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Corn Belt flash drought is plausible most summers; severe limit-up event somewhat less frequent, weather-dependent. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.