News

White Christmas? More like rainy

An ag meteorologist says it likely won’t be a white Christmas for most growing regions across the Midwest.

Greg Soulje tells Brownfield, “We really do have some significant snow cover on the ground out of Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, the Upper Great Lakes region, but at least going into and probably for a couple of days after Christmas itself, pretty mild weather.”

He says moisture during the holiday week should be a gift some farmers appreciate.

“There may be enough rainfall occurrences out of the Eastern and Southern Plains and across a good chunk of the Corn Belt that we’ll see a general net effect of not only milder weather, but wetter weather,” he says.

Soulje says unfortunately some areas are starting to see too much of a good thing.

“Areas near the Ohio River/parts of the Mid-South have seen upwards of 3-4 inches of rain the past several days, so some standing water and mud in the feed lots and in the fields out there,” he says.

Soulje says colder weather outbreaks have been few and far between this winter which is typical for La Nina weather patterns through the winter.