Harvest Weather Forecast: Pattern of Opportunity to Follow Delays

It’s been a fantastic past week for harvest with the weather turning out nearly perfect. We want to lower expectations in this harvest weather update, because we may not be able to duplicate that the rest of this season. We do see a few pauses in the harvest coming in the weeks ahead, but at this time, nothing overly dramatic. We just don’t think we see the quality of drying weather (combination of warmth, breeze and lack of precipitation) that we got last week as we move forward. We hope we are wrong!

The weekend starts with some additional dry weather Saturday morning and midday, but clouds will be building. We think moisture in Lower Michigan holds off until late afternoon Saturday, but will be developing sooner in the UP. Scattered showers continue overnight Saturday night and through Sunday. We also think we will see plenty of wrap around clouds Monday with the occasional shower or two. Combined moisture from this event will be .5”-1.1” with coverage at 100% of the state (see map at right).

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we are rain free. We expect mixed clouds and sun, but should see decent drying and the pattern will give an opportunity for harvest to kick back in later Wednesday and Thursday for any areas that were on the lower end of the rains this weekend. Friday afternoon a few showers lift into southern lower MI with rain totals of a few tenths or less, but farther north we see nothing,

Saturday Sunday and Monday turn out partly to mostly sunny, warmer and dry.

Extended Period:

A weak frontal boundary slide through for Tuesday the 12^th, but has moisture limited to .3” or less. We are dry and warm behind that through Friday morning with above normal temps. Another disturbance works through the UP Friday afternoon (15^th), but likely triggers only clouds farther south in Lower MI. Saturday is dry. Then Sunday we end up with showers along a slow moving front in the southern half to third of Lower MI. Totals there for the 17^th will be a few hundredths to half an inch.

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Weeks 3 & 4:

The drier than normal pattern returns for week three, as we could end up completely rain free from the 18^th through the 24^th. Then we see some moisture returning, but not large amounts for week 4, with near normal precipitation to end the month. Temperatures are well above normal through the entire period, and that will put us on track to be well above normal for the entire month of October, with a decent extension of the growing season.