USDA’s Rippey: Moisture Needed in Some Midwest Areas to Maintain Crops

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No major over-oppressive heat has been registered in most of the US Corn Belt so far this year which has minimized the impact of dry conditions that have emerged in some locations, according to USDA Chief Meteorologist Brad Rippey in a June 28 conversation he had with AgriTalk host Mike Adams, which Informa Economics was a part of.

Highlights of that session follow:

Asked about the current situation in the US crop region, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey said, “There’s quite a number of communities that have seen less than an inch of rain so far in June. l looked at the numbers this morning and it includes places like Burlington, Iowa with just about half an inch; Quincy, Illinois; Lansing, Michigan, less than two-thirds of an inch; even St. Louis had less than an inch. So we are seeing a number of dry areas across the southern and eastern Corn Belt and more recently in the western Corn Belt.

“The big question is where we go from here.

“I guess the good news is we have been able to keep the extreme heat out of the Midwest except for just a few hot days in the southwestern Corn Belt, and it certainly looks like for the foreseeable future (which he defined as two weeks) the heat is going to stay away. It will be parked over the west… the southwest and in the deep south temperatures are going to be favorable. Now if we can just get some moisture into the drier areas in the Midwest so these wonderful corn and soybean conditions could be sustained. Otherwise if dryness persists, we will see some sliding in conditions like we’ve seen over the last couple weeks in states like Missouri and Michigan.”

Are there any big systems moving through ahead that will provide ample rainfall?

“The big story for the next seven days is the fact that we are going to have a fairly stationary boundary draped across the central Plains eastward through the Carolinas, and at the same time we have the monsoon arriving in the southwest. Some of that moisture coming up in the Pacific from Mexico and with the collision of a cold front in the monsoon moisture, we are going to bring out quite a bit of rain over the next seven days from Colorado and Kansas eastward through Missouri, eventually into the Carolinas. So don’t be surprised to see two to six inch totals and that will clip at least the southern half of Illinois, but some of the northern areas, especially Michigan and into northern Ohio and Indiana… those areas are not going to get significant rain during the next week. So those areas I mentioned previously that got less than a half inch of rain, or only about a quarter of normal for June, are looking to be dry for the next week and that is where we really need the rain.”

Asked about the next two weeks, Rippey said, “Into around mid-July at this point we’re not going to see extreme heat into the Midwest. We also have a pretty good idea that in the next several days the heavier rain is going to be to the south, clipping the southern Corn Belt and it will take care of some of the dry areas in Missouri and hopefully as far north as west-central Illinois. But there are some areas to the north and west and into South Dakota were there is some patchy dryness there and especially in the eastern Corn Belt in Michigan. I drove through northern Ohio and there certainly are some signs of stress on corn there around the Toledo area. And the areas that did not get that rain last week, you can really notice the difference. In South Bend (Indiana), there were a couple of good shots at rain and things have really greened up… the soil is soft again. And what a difference rains made where they fell last week and over the weekend.

“Regarding western Kansas, rains have slowed down harvest. The good news is that there’s been some really good progress the last couple weeks. Kansas managed to harvest one-third of the crop just in the last week to get to 58% by June 26, so a lot of that wheat has been taken out. But again, with a forecast of two to six inches of rain over the next seven days, it could be a bit of a struggle for that last say one-third of the crop to come out… whatever has not gotten out by the time the rains really expand and intensify later this week. “

Regarding the timing of La Niña, Rippey said, “The CPC National Weather Service indicates there is a pretty good likelihood that we will be in line even by the end of summer, and it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see significant widespread impacts in the US because most of the big impacts are during the cold season in the US, the fall and winter and into the spring of 2017. I do acknowledge that in some years when we make a quick transition from El Niño to La Niña we do see late-summer heat building into the Midwest. We saw all that significantly in years like 1983 and 1995. We saw a little bit during the most recently ended El Niño in 2010, but it took just a little bit of a late bite off the corn and soybeans. So every week we go without the heat not getting into the Midwest [is significant]. Granted we are short on moisture in a lot of areas, but if we can keep the heat out, that’s a big deal because today’s crops seem to be a little bit more tolerant of drought than they are to heat. So if we can keep the heat out, that’s a big story.”

Asked if he goes along with others who are calling for some “flash droughts” in some areas this summer, Rippey said, “What is safe to say is what has happened over the last thirty to forty-five days in parts of the Midwest would qualify as flash drought. We’ve seen some large pockets of D0 or abnormal dryness. In a few areas the few areas we are now actually in D1 or moderate drought and that has developed fairly quickly after what was a fairly wet spring in a lot of areas. May was kind of a cool, damp month in many areas in the Midwest. So what’s happened over the last four or five weeks would qualify as not a huge flash drought but it would have been a bigger story if this was accompanied by temperatures in the 90s or low 100s. It’s been reasonably cool, but we have seen some significant drying in specific communities that had less than a quarter of their normal rainfall for the month of June. As we head into the late summer there is some risk of further expansion of the dryness and at least the lower classifications of drought and maybe even some late-summer heat as the western ridge may make some wobbles or some pushes to the East from time to time. But at this stage we are almost in July and we’re just not seeing what would qualify as a disaster. We are nowhere even close to 2012. We might be more on par with what we saw in 2010 where it did turn a little bit drier and hotter late in the summer.”

While some hot temps could develop from mid-July on, Rippey said he doesn’t see this sticking around that long and “it doesn’t look like such events are going to be a permanent feature this summer.”

Rippey said this summer there have been “some interesting developments in Europe, especially as you move to the East, some hot weather late in the winter grains season. But as you move into France and the northwestern part of the continent, they have had plenty of rain and rather cool conditions. It’s interesting that a lot of times you see parallels between what happens in the US and in Europe. So about the time things really turned higher in mid-June, that happened in Europe as well and now we’re going back to that wetter, cooler pattern across France. So it looks like a good year for winter grains across much of Europe. A little bit of late heat has been adverse, but overall it’s been a pretty good crop season there.”

Asked what event or weather pattern could occur that would make his forecast wrong, Rippey said, “With a snap of a finger a block in the atmosphere for example could lock in the heat and drought over the Midwest in say August or late July. Or something could happen in the north Pacific with shifts in water temperature. But none of that is foreseen at this point so we’re kind of putting our forecast into the transition each year. We have this protective trough of low pressure keeping the Midwest fairly cool, albeit a little on the dry side. And what we’re seeing is not a perfect season where temperatures and precipitation are ideal, but we are seeing a pretty good season. I think it’s borne out by the crop conditions. So a big surprise is something other than the transition. Forecasts are always subject to change. Over-arching weather patterns tend to lock in for periods of anywhere from say four to eight weeks, We had in the atmosphere a block from mid-April to mid-June, and we’re about two weeks into a new weather pattern that features very little blocking in the northern hemisphere. So we are in what appears to be a stable pattern, but it’s not a blocked pattern. So we see weather systems moving along quite nicely… a lot of cold fronts coming through the Midwest. We may keep that pattern for another two to six weeks at this point. If so, we would have gone through the bulk of summer without any heat stress in the Midwest.”

Asked about South America, Rippey said, “The big story in South America is going to be heading into the next growing season and the typical impact with La Niña there is opposite of what we just saw. Drought becomes more likely across northern Argentina and southern Brazil, which is completely opposite from the previous growing season with adequate to locally excessive moisture and then the drought in northeastern Brazil should be replaced by wetter conditions. So again, opposite impacts expected for the next South American growing season.”

“Australia and New Zealand would actually be another positive with the transition to La Niña,” Rippey noted, saying “that brings the wet weather back into the western part of the Pacific basin. So the entire rim from Australia northward through India and of course all of southeast Asia tends to do much better, much less erratic monsoon when we see La Niña because the warm waters are in the western part of the Pacific basin.”

NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws.