Missouri State Climatologist Pat Guinan said over the past six weeks, October was especially cold and it’s managed to spill over into November. There have even been a couple of snow events and extreme cold in parts of the north central region.
Guinan spoke as part of the North Central U.S. Monthly Climate and Drought Summary and Outlook webinar Nov. 21. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with climate partners, presented the monthly webinar. The North Central region includes Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
“Obviously there’s been a lot of impacts with the weather this harvest season across the north central region on agriculture,” Guinan said.
The first 10 months of 2019 have been very interesting in the United States. The mid-Atlantic states down to Florida have witnessed their warmest January through October on record, while others are seeing the opposite.
“Parts of the north central U.S.—North Dakota or South Dakota—seen their seventh coldest January through October on record,” Guinan said.
There’s been a big temperature gradient across the region. From much below normal conditions in February in the southeast U.S. to below normal conditions for May across much of the north central and southwestern U.S. And then in October, very cold conditions across much of the western half of the country.
“When I look at those types of features that’s indicative of a jet stream that’s fairly robust with that strong temperature gradient, that intersects or bisects the middle part of the country running from the southwest to the northeast,” Guinan said. “Of course the jet stream dictates what happens at surface when it comes to weather conditions.”
Guinan is seeing a storm track that’s been coming and going throughout much of the year, and brings some really high precipitation totals with it. Many states are at or above average for their normal precipitation totals.
“The average January to October total for the contiguous U.S. is 30.25 inches,” he said. “That’s never happened before when you look back on records going all the way back to 1895 to 2019.”
As far as the totals for average precipitation in the contiguous states, “we’re in unchartered territory. That’s the first time in, what, 125 years that we’ve seen an average contiguous U.S. total between January and October of over 30 inches,” Guinan said.
States like South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois saw some exceptionally wet conditions from January to October.
“Again, 2019, wettest January through October on record,” he said. “Interestingly, 2018, 2017 all fall in the top five so not only this year has been exceptionally wet. We are unprecedented when you look at the past three years in regard to the persistent wetness as a whole.”
On the flip side there has been some dryness emerging across parts of the southwestern part of the central region—in particular, southwest Wyoming, southwestern and southern Colorado and the western half of Kansas. There’s even a “slice of D3” on the Drought Monitor.
“Some report they’ve seen less than a half inch of precipitation since the beginning of September,” Guinan said. “So obviously some very dry conditions in portions of southwestern Kansas.”
What a difference a month makes, Guinan noted. For instance in Kentucky residents had their driest and hottest September, but by October they’d reached their third wettest.
“We went from drought covering most of the state to now just a sliver of abnormally dry conditions hugging those southeastern counties,” he said. “So big improvements across parts of, especially parts of southern Illinois, southeast Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and all of Kentucky over the past several weeks when it comes to drought.”
Agriculture has seen a big impact because of the varied weather conditions. Colder soil temperatures have already been recorded, with 4-inch frost measurements already in North Dakota, into northern Minnesota.
“I don’t believe there’s any frost plane in the soil,” he said. “So, initially the frozen soils would have been good for producers getting in their field, and resuming harvesting.”
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Harvesters are finding, with the frozen ground, that things have softened up and make it more challenging to get large equipment into the fields.
Guinan looked at the top soil moisture maps from the National Agricultural Statistics Service and said areas like he mentioned previously with drought conditions are seeing short to very short soil moisture levels without any relief in sight.
“We’re seeing those levels go up across the southwestern U.S.,” he said. “We still have wet conditions across much of the north central U.S. that extends from the Dakotas eastward into the northeastern U.S. where top soil moisture percent is surplus—a little wetter soil moisture conditions, ongoing in that part of the country.”
Corn harvest has been very challenging this year, especially with the cold and wet conditions in October.
“The cold conditions continuing into November. The snowy conditions have made it very difficult for fieldwork activity and for getting in the fields and harvesting,” he said.
Corn harvest in South Dakota, only 23% of the corn has been harvested as of Nov. 17, when typically, it should be about 85%.
“And so it’s just really showing what these wet conditions, snowy conditions have really made it challenging for farmers to complete their harvest,” Guinan said. “Just a little bit of perspective. It’s the second slowest corn harvest in a decade. You have to go all the way back to 2009 to find a slower time for corn harvest.”
In 2009, only 58% of U.S. corn had been harvested versus this year at 76%.
Similarly, sorghum is behind in South Dakota and Nebraska. Dryer conditions in Colorado and down into Texas have improved their progress for sorghum harvest. But soybeans are telling a different story. There’s difficulties getting the soybean crop in across North Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
“With those cold conditions they are running behind across pretty much all of the Corn Belt especially as you work your way into Iowa and Illinois, Indiana and Ohio,” Guinan said.
Sunflower farmers are not immune to the challenges either. A lot of the sunflower crop is grown in the Dakotas, Kansas and Colorado.
“North Dakota has really been hit hard with farmers being challenged getting into the field to harvest their sunflowers and they’re running more than 50 percentage points behind what is typically harvested by this time of year,” Guinan said. “Which would be about 84%. They’re only at 34%.”
Guinan hopes better conditions will return for those needing to finish harvesting fall crops.
Winter wheat planting progress hasn’t seen a lot of change compared to the 5-year average.
“It looks like it’s, of course, Kansas and Oklahoma and parts of Nebraska northeast Colorado—a lot of winter wheat is grown in that region—and a little bit better in regard to percent planting,” Guinan said. “Of course they’ve had drier conditions and more opportunities.”
Even though those areas with the drier planting conditions allowed farmers in the field, it may not have provided any opportunities for seed germinations.
“In Kansas and parts of Colorado you see a little bit down downturn on the percentage that was typically emerged by this time of year,” Guinan said. “Perhaps that cold snap and then dry conditions might have been contributing towards that winter wheat condition on a whole.”
Cold conditions over the past six weeks and wet conditions in October have made it challenging for farmers. Harvest was delayed, but the problems don’t stop there.
“The extreme wetness was creating other problems related to the crop disease, grain dry down, stalk lodging, winter wheat planting, compaction and even field work preparation for next year,” Guinan said. “There were late planted crops this year, and they were slow to emerge because of those very wet conditions and in some cases, we did see some damage to the crops that hadn’t mature yet by some of the October freezes we saw across parts of the Corn Belt.”
Guinan is hearing reports several states in the Corn Belt who have been experiencing propane shortages and issues with distribution of it.
“So that obviously impacts grain drying and livestock,” he said. “Some of these states and these cold and wet conditions really also led to some high moisture content.”
To wrap up, Guinan highlighted how the region experienced cold and wet October and colder first half of November—making it very challenging for agriculture.
“There are concerns; very justifiable concerns for rivers that could freeze above flood stage as we go into winter and the potential issues for ice jams,” Guinan said. “There, perhaps is a little bit of dryness that has emerged across southwest Wyoming, Colorado, western Kansas and southwestern Nebraska.”
Spring flooding for the Missouri and Mississippi river basins and the potential delay for spring field work preparation and planting is concerning as well.
Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].
