Harvest Weather Forecast: Slight Improvement, But Rain Will Return

Way too much moisture around over the past 10 days to 2 weeks. It’s been discouraging. We start the weekend with lingering rains for the first part of Saturday, mostly over the Thumb and southeast MI, but then should start to get clouds to break Saturday afternoon and evening. We expect full sun Sunday through at least Wednesday. After a cool start to this period on Saturday (we can actually see the coolest air that we have seen in a while in here for morning lows Sunday morning), we see temperatures warming Sunday through Wednesday with good evaporation and drying. Evaporation should work closer to .2” per day through the period, with temps mostly normal to above normal.

Overnight Wednesday night and Thursday we have moisture returning from a strong low exiting the central Rockies earlier in the week. The low works up into the Upper Midwest and will track right across the Great Lakes for the Wednesday night and Thursday timeframe. Right now, we are putting rain totals at .25”-.75” with 90% coverage over the state. Hello harvest pause…we will be sad to see you again. See map above.

We put together a couple of mostly drier days behind that for Friday and Saturday, but likely have to deal with more clouds won’t be able to completely rule out a shower or two Saturday, as colder air drifts in from the northern Great Lakes and Canada. As we finish the weekend Sunday, we should be rain free with more sun

This is not the most ideal forecast, and the rain potential Thursday is just flat out not needed. However, we believe this forecast is at least a significant improvement over the last 10 days.

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Extended Period:

The extended forecast has been flip-floppy. WE still are concerned about the potential for a significant run of moisture closer to the 27^th/28^th. However, there is no model agreement for the extended period at all. One model has a strong system coming into the SW US that will potentially bring big time rains into the corn belt for the 28^th through the 30^th. Another says nothing but sunshine blue sky and dry air. While we would like to believe the latter, at this point we think that the current pattern suggests at least one system coming in here around the 27^th-28^th with rain chances of .25”-.75”. Temps do stay mostly above normal for the extended period. Stay tuned to Hoosier Ag Today for our updates on the potential for drier days at and just ahead of the turn of the month.

Weeks 3 & 4:

Near normal moisture in weeks 3 and 4, meaning we see chance of showers both weeks. This does not bode well for accelerating harvest at fast pace. Temps are closer to normal but still above all the way into mid-November.

Week 3

Precipitation (green: above normal, brown: below)