Last week, the race to plant was on. With a consecutive warm and dry days in much of the Corn Belt, some farmers were able to start planting early. The weather pattern this week is flipping, with a cooler bias setting in.
“Anytime you get a slow-moving system over the middle of the country, you’re going to see some cooler, or less warm air, let’s call it that,” says Mike Hoffman, U.S. Farm Report meteorologist.
While drought conditions continue to plague the northern Plains and much of the West, conditions have improved in some areas.
“It’s actually improved a little bit back into parts of Kansas and Nebraska, but it has gotten worse in South Texas and worse over the far northern Plains,” says Hoffman. “And those are places we have to continue to watch.”
Hoffman says the forecast this week points to slower moving systems, but not a lot of severe weather.
“None of these systems are strong systems are just slow movers in a lot of cases, but you can see on Monday there’s a storm system over the central Great Lakes, a cold front down through the Southeast, that’ll have some showers,” says Hoffman. “We’ll see a little bit of rain, and very light snow, across the far northern Rockies and the far northern Plains. Then, checking out Wednesday, that slow moving storm is through the Great Lakes, the cold front is still back to the west, with a little bit of snow.”
Hoffman says despite to the shots of cooler air possible over the next 14 days, because the forecast shows a possible warm-up, his 30-day outlook reflects the temperature trend.
