NEW YORK: ICE cotton futures rose on Friday, on track to post a second straight weekly gain, as wetter weather in major crop-producing areas in the United States delayed the ongoing harvest.

Cotton contracts for December were up 0.38 cent, or 0.6%, to 65.84 cents per lb at 12:42 p.m. EDT (1642 GMT). The contract has risen more than 0.2% this week.

"There is a little bit of a wet weather that is bothering the harvest. It is not really harming the quality but prolonging the harvest," aid Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland.

Rainfall totals of 1 to 3 inches are expected through Friday from the Southern Appalachians into the Piedmont area of South and North Carolina due to post-tropical cyclone Beta, located near Birmingham, Alabama, the National Hurricane Center said.

On the technical front, "the market seems to be happy at around 65.00 and it will take some new momentum to move it through strong overhead resistance or scale-down support," British merchant Plexus Cotton said in a note on Thursday.

Total futures market volume fell by 13,471 to 10,717 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 993 to 220,401 contracts in the previous session.