Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Cotton futures jumped the most in three months as rain hampers the harvest in parts of the U.S., the worldΆs largest exporter.

U.S. Southeast areas, including parts of Georgia and Virginia, will get as much as 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain from today through Nov. 27, delaying the cotton harvest and eroding the crop quality, Drew Lerner, the president of World Weather Inc. in Overland Park, Kansas, said today in a telephone interview.

“WeΆre supposed to get pretty big rains over the next few days, and itΆs causing some buying,” Jack Scoville, a vice president at Price Futures Group Inc. in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. The wet weather “could hurt some volume and certainly will hurt the harvest progress in the coming week,” he said.

Cotton for March delivery advanced 1.6 percent to settle at 78.46 cents a pound at 2:33 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, the biggest gain for a most-active contract since Aug. 16.