USDA’s Joint Ag Weather Facility says in the Corn Belt, most areas are experiencing a temporary reprieve from heavy rain. “However, showers are affecting some of the western corn and soybean production areas,” USDA adds. Any fieldwork that is taking place is occurring in the eastern Corn Belt, where soils are somewhat drier and very warm weather prevails, according to USDA.
In the West, USDA reports temperatures are rebounding to near-normal levels in California and parts of the Southwest, but chilly conditions persist elsewhere. “Isolated showers are mainly confined to the Pacific Northwest,” USDA continues.
On the Plains, USDA explains locally heavy rain is occurring across northern and central areas, slowing or halting fieldwork but helping to ease or eradicate any remaining drought. “Currently, rain is especially heavy in central and eastern Kansas and parts of Montana and the Dakotas,” USDA reports. In contrast, unfavorably dry conditions persist across the southern half of the High Plains, further stressing rangeland, pastures, and emerging summer crops according to USDA.
In the South, USDA says warm, mostly dry weather continues to promote fieldwork that had been previously delayed by cool, wet conditions. “Isolated showers persist across southern Florida and are beginning to develop from the Mississippi Delta westward,” USDA continues.
USDA’s outlook says an exceptionally active weather pattern will persist during the next several days as a slow-moving storm system currently centered over the Dakotas drifts eastward across the nation’s northern tier. During the next five days, USDA says additional rainfall could reach 1 to 3 inches on the northern Plains and 2 to 6 inches from the southeastern Plains into the lower Great Lakes region, including the middle Mississippi Valley. “Locally severe thunderstorms will occur along the storm’s trailing cold front, which will reach the Atlantic Seaboard by June 3,” USDA explains. Warmth in advance of the system will be replaced by cooler conditions after the cold front passes, it adds. During the weekend, hot weather will develop in the Pacific Coast states and begin to spread eastward, according to USDA.
