Too Much Moisture Moving Through for Harvest to Get Going

Too Much Moisture Moving Through for Harvest to Get Going

As we prepare to turn the calendars to October, here on Michigan Ag Today, we’ll have a weekly installment with Chief Meteorologist Ryan Martin and his harvest weather forecast. The Harvest Forecast is brought to you by GreenStone Farm Credit Services, your trusted source for financing, crop insurance, and tax and accounting services for your farm business.

Harvest is beginning later than usual for many, and Martin says, chances are, you won’t get started this coming week either.

“We’ve got a big plume of moisture coming from Iowa and Missouri, up across Northern Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and right into Michigan. Admittedly, over the next week or so, we see a slightly higher skew of moisture in Central and Northern Michigan, but I think we see enough coming through on a daily, or every other day, basis down over the southern part of lower Michigan that we do get delays here. I’m not sure the windows of time are going to be big enough to actually get harvest to move along in Michigan.”

Martin says there are three surges of rain moving through in the next week. How much rain are we talking about?

“Right now, I would say anywhere from .5”- 1.5” of rain I-96 southward combined for the next week. You get north of I-96, you could be pushing closer to 2” in spots. Either way, the big thing here is time in between these little surges are no more than about a day to a day and a half. So, I don’t think we have a chance for a good dry down at all.”

Martin’s forecast calls for temperatures to stay normal to above normal; however, later this week…

“As we head out of Thursday into Friday, we do see some cold air advancing across Michigan. It could be a very chilly morning next Friday morning across most of the Great Lakes, particularly Michigan. 5,000-foot temperatures are going to be freezing to below freezing. That’s going to yield some surface temperatures down in the lower 40s, maybe even flirting with 39 in a few areas.”