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Wild weather now, mild weather later

An atmospheric scientist says many farmers will have to wait for warmer weather.

Eric Snodgrass with Nutrien Ag Solutions says, “I think you’ve got to get past Mother’s Day before it starts to warm up.”

Snodgrass tells Brownfield that summer-like temperatures might not arrive until the end of the month. 

He says last month will go in the books as one of the windiest Aprils on record, and this past weekend was very windy in much of the corn belt. “It’s a mess, and it gets everything quite filthy, and we’re losing topsoil, but at the same time, to get a little wind to dry some stuff out to allow farmers to get that topsoil dried down a little bit to get, hopefully, some planting windows opening up is not necessarily a terrible thing.”

Snodgrass says Monday storms in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana are moving south into the Delta, which is good news. “If we can keep that area wet, because they’re deep on the drought monitor right now, if we can keep adding more rain like we did a week ago to that region, and relieve the drought, it begins to relieve any sort of drought concern there may be for early summer. I’m talking about mid-June to mid-July.”

Snodgrass says the El Niño forecast for this next year could lead to too much good weather this summer and lower crop prices. “I’m not overly worried about this year in terms of our ability to produce a crop. I’m more worried about what it means if we do produce a big crop and we keep the supply so high. I think that’s stuff we just have to consider every single time we think about these long-range forecasts.”

Snodgrass says he always cautions farmers about summertime forecasts issued in early May, as a lot can change.