* Port arrivals outpacing last year's levels * Poor weather ahead of 2013/14 season to cut output * ICCO foresees global deficit of at least 100,000 T By Ange Aboa ABIDJAN, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Poor weather in the run-up tothe start of the 2013/14 cocoa season in Ivory Coast will causeproduction to fall off sharply next month despite a harvest thatis currently stronger than last year, exporters and merchantssaid on Wednesday. The season opened in the world's top cocoa at the beginningof October. Exporters estimate arrivals at the country's twoports reached around 587,000 tonnes by Dec. 8 compared with423,000 tonnes in the same period of the previous season. Some 91,000 tonnes of beans were delivered to ports betweenDec. 2 and 8, the most of any week so far this season. "The arrivals levels right now are a bit of a surprise.We'll finish the year at 750,000 tonnes," said the purchasesmanager for an Abidjan-based exporter. Arrivals stood at 649,000 tonnes by the end of December2012, according to Ivory Coast's marketing board, the CCC. "The problem will be from January," the manager said. The International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) is predicting aglobal cocoa deficit in excess of 100,000 tonnes in 2013/14, dueto both lower production and better-than-expected demand. Andtraders have bought heavily to head off the expected shortfall,driving up prices. ICE March cocoa touched a two-year high of $2,844 atonne last week. It dipped $22, or 0.8 percent, to $2,751 atonne on Wednesday. On plantations in Ivory Coast, merchants said ripe pods wererapidly being harvested and there was a scarcity of developingpods on trees. "No, there aren't many pods in the fields to continue thecurrent high volumes," said Brice Konan, a merchant based inSoubre. "We didn't get good rains in September and so a largepart of the flowers and small pods dropped off in October." Mathieu Coulibaly, a middleman in Duekoue said manyplantations already appeared depleted with only a few green podsand cherelles (small pods) to indicate future production. "We started the (October-to-March) main crop strong, but itis going to finish abruptly in January," he said. Exporters and merchants said this season's high arrivals maynot be an accurate reflection of production. Many farmers and middlemen are believed to have stockedbeans from last season to take advantage of an anticipatedincrease in the government guaranteed farmer price. Those beansmay have inflated early port deliveries. The first weeks of last season were also seriously affectedby delays in exporters' financing to middlemen. No beans arrivedat port in the first week of the 2012/13 season. "You can't compare, because it's not the same at all. Lastyear we had all kinds of problems in the beginning, whereas thisyear everything has gone smoothly since the start of theharvest," said Mohamed Keita, a merchant in Meagui.