The spectacular rebound of North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices in the first week of February continued last week as prices rose yet further in response to transportation problems, mostly on the Canadian railways. Severe weather hit many parts of Canada and the US, causing delays of shipments from softwood lumber suppliers. Customers, already low on inventory as they had been waiting for prices to come down, were forced to buy specific items for immediate fill-in needs. Sawmills responded by raising prices and by going off-the-market on the most popular items, because they didn’t want to quote too far into the future in case prices rise more. Wholesaler prices for benchmark lumber… commodity price is now down $96, or -19%, from one year ago’s level of US$518 mfbm.