Daily Coffee Report 8/12/26
Daily coffee report
StoneX Coffee Team
- Coffee
Cold Snap Hits Honduras During Peak Harvest Window, Raising Risks for 2025/26 Coffee Output
By: Alexis Rubinstein, Managing Editor - Coffee Network
CoffeeNetwork (New York) - Honduras—Central America’s largest coffee producer—has been thrust into a period of meteorological volatility at a critical moment in its harvest calendar. A strong cold front began sweeping across the country on January 15, 2026, carrying with it a marked drop in temperatures and periods of heavy rainfall, according to the national meteorological agency CENAOS.
Within days, the government issued a Green Alert—the country’s formal low‑level weather alert—for seven departments: Islas de la Bahía, Copán, Santa Bárbara, Cortés, Yoro, Atlántida, and Colón, in response to the mass of cold air. The alert reflects enhanced monitoring and preparedness, signaling that conditions are unusual enough to warrant official oversight even if they have not yet escalated into an emergency.
Adding further weight to the situation, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center reported that Honduras is experiencing abnormally cold conditions, particularly in its highland regions, with minimum temperatures running 1–4°C below normal for the January 29–February 4 outlook period. These anomalies are not isolated weather quirks—they stem from a persistent cold front impacting northern Central America, combined with accumulated rainfall over the preceding 30 days.
This confluence of cold temperatures, heavy precipitation, and regional alerts arrives at one of the most critical junctures in Honduras’s coffee cycle: the heart of the 2025/26 harvest season.
Honduras’s key producing regions—Copán, Montecillos, Opalaca, Comayagua, El Paraíso, and Agalta—lie between roughly 1,000 and 1,600 meters above sea level. These highland microclimates typically benefit from cool nights that slow cherry maturation and concentrate sugars, a hallmark of Honduran cup quality. But sudden cold spells can shift from beneficial to disruptive.
The temperature drops predicted by CENAOS, compounded by NOAA’s below‑normal anomalies, can slow cherry maturation, delay ripening, and exacerbate uneven cherry development, placing pressure on producers who rely on tightly timed picking passes. Extended harvest windows inevitably raise labor costs, complicating scheduling at a time when seasonal labor is already stretched.
Regions like Comayagua, which normally feature stable warm‑tropical conditions with highs near 30°C during much of the harvest season, are particularly sensitive to a sudden cooling that interrupts the steady metabolic rhythm required for balanced maturation. A slowdown of even 1–2°C can delay peak ripeness, forcing producers to decide between multiple passes or risk picking underripe cherries.
The cold front is not strictly a temperature event—it carries significant rainfall, especially in Omoa, Puerto Cortés, Choloma, and northern Yoro, where accumulations may surpass 100 mm in 36–48 hours, according to CENAOS hazard projections.
For washed‑processed coffees—which dominate northern and western Honduras—excess rainfall at harvest time has several consequences, including increased risk of pre‑processing fermentation defects. Additionally, cherries harvested in wet conditions ferment more quickly in transit. If mills cannot process them immediately due to road delays or capacity constraints, quality loss becomes likely.
Rain and humidity impede sun drying, forcing mills to rely on mechanical dryers, which raise fuel costs and elevate the risk of uneven moisture or “baked” flavor profiles. NOAA's reporting confirms persistent moderate to heavy rainfall leading to positive precipitation anomalies of 100+ mm across northern and central Honduras—evidence that drying patios have already been under pressure for weeks.]
The Green Alert details the potential for flooding, reduced visibility, and road disruption, particularly in northern departments. Coffee moving from farms to wet mills or from mills to export terminals—especially Puerto Cortés, Honduras’s critical Caribbean port—may face bottlenecks that delay drying, milling, or container loading.
In short, the weather system’s rainfall component may have an even larger impact on post‑harvest integrity than the cold air itself.
Coffee diseases thrive in environments where moisture remains elevated for extended periods. NOAA’s climate bulletin confirms the persistence of heavy rainfall, high humidity, and widespread precipitation anomalies—a combination that fosters conditions conducive to Phoma, berry drop, and opportunistic fungal infections.
While Honduras has made substantial progress reducing coffee leaf rust through adoption of resistant varieties such as Parainema, cool and wet conditions diminish sunlight and weaken plants’ natural defenses. Even if rust does not re‑emerge at scale, other moisture‑related pathogens may surface, particularly in dense, shaded plots that lack airflow.
Not all consequences are negative. In highland areas where the cold anomaly is mild and rainfall is intermittent rather than prolonged, slower cherry maturation can enhance bean density and cup complexity. This is especially true for regions like Opalaca and Montecillos, known for their high acidity and fruit clarity.
However, given the intensity of rainfall reported across the northern half of the country, such gains are likely to be localized rather than widespread. [en.climate-data.org]
The cold snap does not necessarily imply a steep drop in Honduras’s national output—but it does create meaningful risk for quality, uniformity, and timing, which could reverberate through regional price differentials and global washed Arabica availability as the 2025/26 cycle unfolds.
Alexis Rubinstein
- Coffee
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