Second Tuesday at 9 — May 13, 2025

CropWatch Author

05/13/2025 Added

12 Plays

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Nebraska Extension Meteorologist Eric Hunt shares an update on soil temperatures for the planting season, chances for rain throughout the rest of May and early June, and the long-range outlook for precipitation and drought as spring progresses into summer.

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[00:00:00.000]Okay, good Tuesday morning. Eric Hunt with the University of Nebraska Extension in time for another second Tuesday at 9.
[00:00:08.460]I just want to start by reviewing where we've been so far this spring, meteorological spring that is, through the months of March and April.
[00:00:14.980]We take a look at the Corn Belt as a whole. We've been warmer than average, certainly, but also a little wetter than average, kind of coming here in this upper right quadrant.
[00:00:23.700]Closest comparable years would be 1985 and 2016.
[00:00:29.000]For Nebraska, temperatures have been comparable or very similar to that of the Corn Belt as a whole, a little bit above 46 degrees, but it's been much, much drier out here in the state of Nebraska than we've been for mostly Corn Belt.
[00:00:41.500]Again, 2012 kind of stands out as an absolute outlier both for the state and for the Corn Belt as a whole, but yeah, we've been considerably drier in this part of the Midwest than we've been further toward the east.
[00:00:54.200]Looking at recent precipitation going back 60 days.
[00:00:58.500]Going back to the middle of March, we are quite wet across the southern plains getting into the mid-south region of the eastern portion of the Corn Belt.
[00:01:05.300]So the southern portions of Illinois and Indiana and most of Ohio have been quite wet going back 60 days.
[00:01:11.740]Now again, some of this, or even perhaps much of this that you see here in parts of West Tennessee and into Kentucky and parts of southeast Missouri really was almost exclusively from the incredible rain that they had down there in the first part of April.
[00:01:25.220]What you're looking at here in Oklahoma, Texas is a lot more recent.
[00:01:28.480]It's not like a 30 days departure.
[00:01:31.220]So again, it's really the southern plains, Oklahoma, North Texas, getting the panhandle, Texas, and even a part to southwestern Kansas and southwestern Missouri show up as very, very wet, then very wet kind of along the Gulf Coast from East Texas into Alabama, drying out though across portions of the Mid-South region.
[00:01:48.180]And most of Indiana is dry and certainly most of the Corn Belt with just a couple of exceptions, northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota being kind of a couple of exceptions.
[00:01:58.000]Most, of course.
[00:01:58.460]Corn Belt's been pretty dry here the last 30 days.
[00:02:00.280]And we've been very, very dry here across most of Nebraska and kind of getting to parts of northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri.
[00:02:06.880]If we look at precipitation ranges through the first 12 days of May, you know, again, pretty wet here across the southern tier of the country, particularly so here across the Gulf Coast region.
[00:02:18.180]We had tremendous rains last week.
[00:02:19.860]Northeast has been pretty wet here of late as well, which is good news.
[00:02:22.940]They definitely have some longstanding drought conditions they're trying to eradicate.
[00:02:26.840]But really, most of the north central region has been pretty dry.
[00:02:29.880]It's been record dry or near record dry to some cases across northwest Missouri and getting into northwest Iowa, northeast Nebraska.
[00:02:38.260]So really kind of this core area up here has been nearly record dry so far in the month of May.
[00:02:43.820]And if we take a look at where we've been just with regard to lower atmospheric humidity,
[00:02:51.200]so at 850 millibars, which is about 5,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level,
[00:02:56.760]you know, that's kind of where we like looking at moisture coming up from the Gulf.
[00:02:59.980]And we definitely noticed that we had been pretty dry relative to normal for lower atmospheric humidity across most of the Corn Belt,
[00:03:09.080]certainly most of north central U.S., above average humidity across the southern tier of the country.
[00:03:14.120]So, again, we've had a lot of troughing and slow moving upper level lows moving through the southern portion of the country.
[00:03:20.340]So that is kind of reflected here in the higher humidity at 850 millibars.
[00:03:25.200]This does compare a little bit to 2023.
[00:03:27.800]So, again, in 2023, through a comparable time period, we did see increased humidity across a lot of the Gulf Coast region and a larger area of lower relative humidity across the north central United States.
[00:03:39.480]Now, I point out in 2023 that that area was certainly larger than it's been this year.
[00:03:45.120]And the anomalies were a bit more acute than they were and they've been so far this year.
[00:03:50.940]Another way to kind of look at aridity in the atmosphere.
[00:03:55.100]Certainly, the near surface is this evaporative demand drought index or EDDI.
[00:03:59.660]And so, again, this really is kind of a look at relative to this basically is a normalized version of potentially of apple transpiration at the near surface.
[00:04:10.300]So when you see these categories in the reds and dark reds, that basically means over the last 12 weeks,
[00:04:16.420]there's been an unusual amount of atmospheric demand, very high potential of apple transpiration.
[00:04:21.540]Now, this doesn't by itself indicate drought.
[00:04:25.000]Because maybe you've had a couple of really good rains in there.
[00:04:28.260]You clearly may not have severe or extreme levels of drought.
[00:04:32.640]But it may mean that when you are getting precipitation, you are losing out water more quickly.
[00:04:37.620]And if you're not getting precipitation, this enhanced demand at the surface is going to exacerbate things.
[00:04:43.500]So notice here in the western portion of Nebraska, we are considered in the kind of the 83 or extreme category for the last 12 weeks.
[00:04:53.100]And if you go back several months.
[00:04:54.900]You almost a year.
[00:04:55.820]I mean, you really do kind of see just kind of a pronounced atmospheric demand or potentially evapotranspiration at the surface, a lot of the high plains region.
[00:05:06.200]And I do think that is contributing to conditions, especially for pastures being worse than maybe is what is currently being reflected on the drought monitor.
[00:05:15.100]And I think this maybe is an opportunity to maybe try to better understand how much this actually does impact short term or even medium term drought conditions.
[00:05:24.800]I don't think this, again, I don't think this tool isn't a great assessment of drought by itself, but I do think it can help show that maybe certain areas that are currently in drought may be a little bit worse than what's currently depicted.
[00:05:40.680]If you do see atmospheric demand or potential evapotranspiration, it has for a long period of time.
[00:05:46.780]This also does compare somewhat favorably to 2012 or, you know, well, probably 2012 was not a year.
[00:05:54.780]We want to be comparing to not saying these are identical,
[00:05:57.500]but you do notice that a large portion of the U.S. in 2012 had an enhanced potential evapotranspiration compared to normal.
[00:06:04.880]And some of the same places where we're seeing it so far this year.
[00:06:08.420]This is kind of a, again, I don't think 2012 and this year have been that closely aligned,
[00:06:14.920]but there are definitely some similarities that are a little bit unfortunate.
[00:06:18.720]Looking at soil moisture, so again, where we've been wetter, we have, you know,
[00:06:24.760]soil moisture percentiles are quite high across a lot of the southern high plains,
[00:06:29.140]getting into a lot of the Gulf Coast states.
[00:06:32.000]And, you know, we'd say things dry out a little bit here across some of the Mid-South region.
[00:06:36.040]Very dry soils relative to normal across a lot of northern part of Illinois.
[00:06:40.440]Very, very dry here across Nebraska and the Dakotas.
[00:06:43.680]Now, again, as I've mentioned several times, this is not actually literally,
[00:06:47.620]this is not literal soil moisture.
[00:06:50.100]This is modeled soil moisture that is put into a, you know,
[00:06:54.740]to percentile.
[00:06:56.020]So if your model soil moisture is, you know,
[00:06:59.400]in the is quite low for this time of year,
[00:07:01.360]you're going to be in the probably the bottom 10 to 20% or maybe in the
[00:07:05.020]bottom 5%.
[00:07:06.000]And if your water content is higher than it would be for this time of year,
[00:07:09.420]typically you're going to be probably in the top 80% or top 20%.
[00:07:13.980]So when you're in the blue color.
[00:07:15.300]And so again,
[00:07:17.400]this means that just relative to normal soils are quite dry here across
[00:07:21.580]Northern Illinois.
[00:07:22.560]It does not mean that you literally only,
[00:07:24.720]have 2% of available soil moisture.
[00:07:26.260]And again,
[00:07:28.000]soil moisture in parts of Illinois,
[00:07:30.160]when you see the fifth percentile,
[00:07:31.840]it doesn't necessarily mean the same level of,
[00:07:35.000]you know,
[00:07:36.280]complete desiccation of soil moisture as it does out here in parts of
[00:07:39.560]Western Nebraska.
[00:07:40.860]So just understand that,
[00:07:42.820]you know,
[00:07:43.100]this is basically just saying relative to your location,
[00:07:46.440]are your soils wet or dry for this time of year?
[00:07:49.740]The soil temperatures here across the great state of Nebraska,
[00:07:54.080]mostly,
[00:07:54.700]in the seventies yesterday.
[00:07:56.420]So again,
[00:07:56.880]it's been pretty warm.
[00:07:57.640]So you are,
[00:07:58.100]you've seen our soil temperatures come up quite a bit here in the last
[00:08:01.640]week or so.
[00:08:02.280]Not record soil temperatures by any means,
[00:08:05.080]but certainly above average for this time of year.
[00:08:07.020]And it certainly is helping get some corn and soybeans start emerging
[00:08:10.780]where they've been planted.
[00:08:11.820]Quick look at the drought monitor.
[00:08:14.600]So again,
[00:08:15.560]we do have a large portion of the South central U.S.
[00:08:19.220]is completely free of drought,
[00:08:20.500]which that's good news.
[00:08:21.540]And I do think that it's also helpful,
[00:08:23.520]especially if you go back and,
[00:08:24.680]take a look at those soil moisture percentiles.
[00:08:25.960]So we do have relatively wet ground here across a lot of the Southern
[00:08:30.520]Plains in the Mid-South region.
[00:08:31.980]So the good news is if we are getting decent moisture return from the
[00:08:35.720]Gulf,
[00:08:35.980]that we're not necessarily going to be having it taken back to a large
[00:08:39.980]degree by dry soils here.
[00:08:42.500]So we definitely noticed in the past,
[00:08:44.400]if we dry out significantly in this part of the country,
[00:08:47.180]it does affect our moisture return back up here into the Plains and
[00:08:50.880]Midwest.
[00:08:51.280]So the fact that we are relatively moist down here would mean that it
[00:08:54.660]shouldn't have any inhibition of evapotranspiration.
[00:08:57.100]So hopefully we can get the full return of moisture back up in here next
[00:09:00.680]week, which I'll talk about a little bit.
[00:09:02.160]Regardless, we still have a lot of drought across portions of the country,
[00:09:05.460]Southwestern U.S., West, South and West Texas.
[00:09:08.120]Florida has really seen things go downhill significantly here in the last
[00:09:11.800]several weeks and some longstanding dryness and drought conditions here
[00:09:15.320]across the East Coast.
[00:09:17.040]We've seen things improve tremendously here across a lot of the Eastern
[00:09:19.800]Corn Belt.
[00:09:20.360]We've been sneaky dry here though,
[00:09:22.320]across portions of the Central Corn Belt,
[00:09:24.280]particularly across portions of Illinois,
[00:09:25.880]where I showed you the low swamwish percentiles.
[00:09:28.540]Still some longstanding drought conditions here across North Dakota,
[00:09:32.380]but really Nebraska right now in the Central U.S.
[00:09:35.260]is the epicenter for drought conditions.
[00:09:37.140]We did see expansion of severe drought into more of Central and Northeastern
[00:09:41.100]Nebraska last week.
[00:09:42.240]And we did see some expansion or introduction of extreme drought here
[00:09:46.220]across the Eastern portion of Sandhills.
[00:09:47.860]So again,
[00:09:48.760]we've had very little precipitation in this region here in the last 30 to
[00:09:52.380]45 days.
[00:09:53.900]And it's going to be absolutely critical that we get some moisture here
[00:09:56.160]soon,
[00:09:56.540]or it's going to be big problems going into the summer.
[00:10:00.660]Again,
[00:10:02.180]if you're listening to this from Nebraska,
[00:10:03.260]we do have a burn ban across most of the Western two thirds of the
[00:10:07.140]state.
[00:10:07.360]So basically highway 81 here,
[00:10:09.920]the Northern portion of the state,
[00:10:11.280]and then 281,
[00:10:12.220]the Southern portion of the state.
[00:10:13.200]So if you are West of those dividing lines,
[00:10:15.480]you are currently in a burn ban through May 20th based on conditions.
[00:10:21.860]And that was put into place by,
[00:10:23.600]by a governor pill in back in April that has been extended through May
[00:10:27.440]20th.
[00:10:27.520]Take a look at still water equivalent.
[00:10:30.840]So again,
[00:10:31.260]we have seen a lot of the snow melt.
[00:10:33.460]That's pretty rapidly here across a lot of the Western United States.
[00:10:37.080]Recent weeks.
[00:10:37.840]It's been pretty warm across pretty much the entire country.
[00:10:40.820]A lot of the Western U S included.
[00:10:42.140]So we have seen snow melt accelerate.
[00:10:45.080]And this again,
[00:10:46.340]this is a look at a place in the North Platte basin.
[00:10:49.440]So I noticed that this year we were doing fairly well with regard to still
[00:10:53.200]water,
[00:10:53.540]equivalent,
[00:10:53.900]you know,
[00:10:54.420]kind of around the median.
[00:10:55.380]So the amount of water is going to be coming into the Western portion of
[00:10:59.980]Nebraska this year,
[00:11:00.960]I think should be probably right around average,
[00:11:03.600]maybe just slightly lesser more in some cases.
[00:11:06.440]But I think water is going to get there relatively early.
[00:11:09.300]So we have seen if it's not already coming in,
[00:11:11.800]we've seen things really drop off significantly here in the last couple of
[00:11:14.780]weeks,
[00:11:14.940]the warm temperatures.
[00:11:15.740]So we've gone from being near the median to being,
[00:11:19.360]you know,
[00:11:19.660]well below the long-term median for where we normally be in early May
[00:11:23.480]not the earliest melt off on record,
[00:11:26.880]but certainly close to it.
[00:11:28.020]Looking at rangeland conditions again,
[00:11:31.180]not really good news here.
[00:11:32.660]We good news.
[00:11:33.820]I guess if there is any,
[00:11:34.700]is that most of the Southern Plains have seen things improve quite a bit.
[00:11:38.940]So we only have 13% of pastures in Oklahoma considered poor to very poor
[00:11:43.240]Kansas,
[00:11:43.620]18% beginning up here in Nebraska,
[00:11:46.020]veg dry shows very stressed conditions for most of the state.
[00:11:48.780]52% of rangelands are considered in poor to,
[00:11:53.420]very poor condition,
[00:11:54.300]very poor rangeland pasture conditions here across a lot of the West.
[00:11:59.120]Montana is a kind of an interesting case up here.
[00:12:03.020]I mean,
[00:12:03.220]54% are considered poor to very poor veg dry isn't necessarily depicting
[00:12:07.140]that,
[00:12:07.520]but I think it's also maybe a little bit too early to pick up a real good
[00:12:10.960]signal up there just yet.
[00:12:12.740]If we assume below normal precipitation,
[00:12:15.880]which I do think is a pretty good possibility across most of the Plains
[00:12:20.820]front range region,
[00:12:21.860]we are very likely,
[00:12:23.360]to see below normal net primary productivity,
[00:12:27.740]which you can more or less correlate to forage production.
[00:12:31.080]So again,
[00:12:32.100]I do think we are looking at potential for continued production losses or
[00:12:37.660]forage issues,
[00:12:38.640]particularly in Nebraska and parts of the Cotas where we had some long-term
[00:12:42.620]drought.
[00:12:42.980]Good news is parts of South Dakota have improved.
[00:12:45.100]Western North Dakota still has a lot of challenges.
[00:12:48.460]And we've seen things improve here across the Southern High Plains,
[00:12:52.440]but I think this also,
[00:12:53.300]shows this grass cast model that if we go over dry again,
[00:12:57.100]later this summer,
[00:12:57.800]the precipitation that we've received so far in the spring may not be
[00:13:00.600]enough to offset what we were not getting,
[00:13:03.500]you know,
[00:13:04.080]for the previous several months to a couple of years.
[00:13:06.420]Okay.
[00:13:08.360]Looking at moisture,
[00:13:08.980]I do have some good news.
[00:13:10.500]We should be seeing troughing move back into the Western United States
[00:13:13.860]early in this next week.
[00:13:14.740]So again,
[00:13:15.120]we are going to have a chance to getting some thunderstorms across
[00:13:17.780]certainly portions of North Central,
[00:13:20.380]Northeastern Nebraska,
[00:13:21.480]maybe getting South,
[00:13:23.240]South of I-80 tomorrow night.
[00:13:24.580]Pretty good chances of moisture really across North Central,
[00:13:27.800]forces of Northeastern Nebraska.
[00:13:29.180]And then certainly good chances of moisture on Thursday across the Dakotas.
[00:13:32.600]We're going to really cool off.
[00:13:33.880]So again,
[00:13:34.840]so much need of moisture should fall up here in the next couple of days.
[00:13:38.320]But as we move into next week,
[00:13:39.400]I think we're going to see a couple of different short ways move out and
[00:13:44.120]which,
[00:13:44.380]you know,
[00:13:44.660]we'll have a couple of different areas of low pressure at the surface.
[00:13:47.000]I'll move into the central Plains region.
[00:13:48.420]So we are looking at a,
[00:13:49.840]the possibility for getting some pretty good,
[00:13:53.180]moisture from basically the front range,
[00:13:56.360]all the way into the Great Lakes region,
[00:13:58.040]extending down to the Mid-South.
[00:13:59.400]So looking at the seven day anomalies from the European ensemble,
[00:14:02.620]it does show above average favored Northern Plains,
[00:14:05.520]all of the,
[00:14:05.980]pretty much all of the corn belt and getting down the Mid-South region.
[00:14:08.140]So again,
[00:14:08.540]for most of us,
[00:14:09.380]this would be certainly if not welcome,
[00:14:13.120]it's almost an absolute necessity in my opinion,
[00:14:15.600]drying out here across the Southern Plains.
[00:14:18.140]But again,
[00:14:18.500]how wet it's been,
[00:14:19.620]that's not necessarily bad news.
[00:14:23.120]Although if this continues,
[00:14:24.260]that would be bad news.
[00:14:25.360]Another look at a chance of getting two inches of moisture.
[00:14:28.760]So again,
[00:14:29.260]very good chance of getting two inches of moisture over the next couple of
[00:14:32.280]weeks here across a lot of the COTAs.
[00:14:33.720]Again,
[00:14:34.520]I cannot stress enough how important this moisture would be for a lot of the
[00:14:38.700]Northern part of Nebraska,
[00:14:39.660]including a lot of the Sandhills.
[00:14:40.980]We absolutely have to have this to have any shot at getting a decent forest
[00:14:45.580]production.
[00:14:46.000]We really need this across forks,
[00:14:47.760]the panhandle,
[00:14:48.400]a very poor winter wheat crop right now.
[00:14:50.980]And,
[00:14:51.920]you know,
[00:14:52.160]again,
[00:14:52.400]you'll be,
[00:14:53.060]further south and east of the state where we maybe are not quite as bad
[00:14:57.360]off,
[00:14:57.600]but we certainly have not received much precipitation.
[00:14:59.860]This would be just an absolute necessity for rain fed farmers.
[00:15:04.700]And certainly for just anybody in general,
[00:15:06.360]we already are seeing pivots being run across a lot of the central portion
[00:15:10.140]of the state just to try to kind of get things going.
[00:15:12.820]This would hopefully put them on hiatus for a little bit.
[00:15:16.000]Also,
[00:15:17.180]we've been very,
[00:15:17.800]very warm across this portion of the country of late.
[00:15:19.700]We should be cooling off a good bit next week.
[00:15:21.600]So I think we're going to be looking at highs,
[00:15:23.180]probably for a couple of days,
[00:15:25.060]at least in the sixties,
[00:15:25.920]maybe even in the fifties,
[00:15:27.140]the I-80 corridor.
[00:15:28.560]And if you live in North Dakota,
[00:15:30.680]you're probably looking at temperatures on Friday,
[00:15:33.220]potentially being 50,
[00:15:34.480]maybe even 60 degrees colder than what they were here the last couple of
[00:15:37.840]days.
[00:15:38.200]Getting a little bit deeper into the crystal ball,
[00:15:41.940]late May,
[00:15:42.740]first part of June,
[00:15:43.640]CPC favors warmer than average temperatures returning to most of the
[00:15:47.280]plains.
[00:15:47.680]Not really showing any strong signal on precipitation,
[00:15:50.420]maybe a little bit in the intermountain west and a little bit,
[00:15:53.020]maybe above average across portions of east,
[00:15:54.960]but really no real strong signal here for the CPC.
[00:15:58.720]Looking at the ENSO forecasts,
[00:16:01.120]again,
[00:16:01.360]we are likely to be in neutral conditions as we head through the summer.
[00:16:05.180]As we get later into the summer,
[00:16:06.920]into the fall,
[00:16:07.760]there is a chance that we go back into La Nina.
[00:16:10.600]There's also maybe about a roughly one in five chance that we go into El
[00:16:14.900]Nino.
[00:16:15.160]Currently,
[00:16:17.620]sea surface temperature anomalies across the globe.
[00:16:19.860]We do see,
[00:16:20.800]you know,
[00:16:21.380]a lot of warm water,
[00:16:22.220]which,
[00:16:23.000]is kind of becoming a fairly normal theme right now with the planet
[00:16:26.960]warming.
[00:16:27.340]But just in terms of areas that I'm most interested in.
[00:16:30.780]So again,
[00:16:31.120]a lot of warm water here from the Gulf,
[00:16:32.860]the Caribbean into the Atlantic.
[00:16:34.380]So the area where we tend to watch for hurricane formation,
[00:16:38.000]a lot of warm water here.
[00:16:39.240]So if we have the atmosphere in the right place or things are in the
[00:16:44.460]right,
[00:16:44.660]right conditions for hurricanes later this summer,
[00:16:47.620]right now,
[00:16:48.300]this indicate that we have the water,
[00:16:49.640]have the juice that we would need the area where you look for for end
[00:16:52.980]so,
[00:16:53.320]you know,
[00:16:54.280]mostly some warm,
[00:16:56.420]some cooler.
[00:16:56.980]So we have really seen La Nina is basically essentially is over and we
[00:17:02.740]are considered atmospheric and oceanic neutral conditions right now.
[00:17:06.480]So we do see more warmer water here across the Eastern Pacific,
[00:17:09.580]a little bit more upwelling here of late here across portions of South
[00:17:12.620]America.
[00:17:13.080]So this has warmed up significantly across this portion of Pacific in the
[00:17:17.180]last couple of months.
[00:17:17.900]And we've seen some of the central Pacific warm up here a bit where we
[00:17:21.840]haven't seen things warm up.
[00:17:22.960]is here from kind of the Baja
[00:17:25.560]over to Hawaii. So where we look for the
[00:17:27.480]the pacific meridian mode uh right now it is currently in the negative phase meaning we have
[00:17:32.810]northeasterly trade winds that have been more enhanced so we have bringing some of that colder
[00:17:37.870]water from the eastern portion pacific and pushing it further west and i do think that this is going
[00:17:44.170]to be a very important area to watch if this persists for the next couple of months and that
[00:17:49.090]ends up being a dominant signal that is going to spell a lot of trouble for the central united
[00:17:53.290]states as we head into the summer months the area where we look for the pacific decadal oscillation
[00:17:58.950]again a lot of warm water up here which again i think this this if this was cold with this i i
[00:18:06.670]think the odds of us having a rough summer in the century was i would say if it wasn't a guarantee
[00:18:11.650]it would certainly be very very likely the fact that this isn't cold is certainly a sign that
[00:18:18.250]maybe we can kind of keep the atmosphere moving you know maybe we will still have um you know
[00:18:23.530]again we've seen a lot of loss atmosphere momentum here in the last couple weeks starting to pick
[00:18:27.530]back up again you know if we can keep it going through at least portion of the summer that will
[00:18:32.010]at least stave off the major major drought for a lot of the central u.s for a while
[00:18:36.290]but if this starts going over cooler and we start getting a major pacific high here then we are
[00:18:41.370]going to see troughing most likely develop here off the west coast ridge here trough here show
[00:18:46.470]you that later but right now we
[00:18:48.230]are still the negative phase of pdo because the water on the east western side of the pacific
[00:18:52.430]basin is warmer relative to the east which is where we've been for a lot of the last five years
[00:18:57.350]and i do think the negative pdo deserves more blame is getting for the amount of drought that
[00:19:02.530]we've been having here particularly across a lot of the west and the plains regions
[00:19:05.850]so again i mentioned that the pmm could spell trouble for us so if we look historically going
[00:19:11.570]back to at least like the early 1980s what i'm showing here is a correlation with the pmm so if
[00:19:17.450]we are
[00:19:18.210]in a negative pmm that means we have a negative correlation relatively strong correlation at that
[00:19:23.970]and this would basically say that you know compared you know with the 500 millibar heights
[00:19:27.910]that we would tend to have more uh more ridging across the central portion of the continent
[00:19:33.790]with troughing off the west trough to the east ridge so the pacific high trough
[00:19:38.630]ridge trough you know ridge i mean you just kind of see that sort of awesome you know pattern
[00:19:43.610]through the northern hemisphere this is absolutely not what you want to see in the
[00:19:48.190]months of july and august so again the years where we have tend to had a strong pmm signal
[00:19:52.870]like 2012 we had a strong ridge i just kind of was more or less if not sitting there the
[00:19:58.190]entire summer was there uh pretty prevalently uh with pdo again this isn't quite as bad
[00:20:04.290]for the central us but certainly isn't great particularly for uh western corn belted plains
[00:20:09.270]this would indicate you know with the negative pdo we tend to have more ridging across the
[00:20:13.050]western united states uh so again this has been a pretty dominant signal in the late
[00:20:18.170]summer and early falls across uh our region of the world here in the last several years
[00:20:23.390]um you know again that correlation actually gets a little bit stronger as you head into
[00:20:27.170]late summer and fall so if we do see the negative pdo persist in the fall i i do think we are
[00:20:32.210]probably looking at another warm dry fall uh ahead particularly for areas west of mississippi
[00:20:37.310]looking at june the european model does show dry favored across most of the central uh southern
[00:20:44.250]plains and of course to the western corn belt maybe a little bit wetter than average across
[00:20:48.150]parts of the upper midwest not a strong signal here but certainly not looking at a wet not
[00:20:53.030]projecting a wet june here across anywhere in the corn belt maybe a little bit wet here across
[00:20:57.350]parts of the southeast favoring warmer than average across almost the entire country
[00:21:01.330]with the most bullish on warmth here across the central great plains and western corn belt
[00:21:07.010]so if there's something that i'm seeing and i've been seeing here in the last week or so
[00:21:14.790]that gives me more concern than what i'm seeing in this map for the month of
[00:21:18.130]june is what the european weeklies have been kind of showing for surface pressure anomalies
[00:21:23.950]uh later in june so again this is actually a 30-day anomaly going from starting from
[00:21:29.070]basically a worldly week and through late june and what you're seeing here is that this is
[00:21:34.190]showing that the bermuda high would be more or less probably displaced over toward the azores
[00:21:39.070]as we had in later in the month of june uh that is not good news for getting moisture back into
[00:21:45.390]the central united states certainly not good news for getting moisture
[00:21:48.110]west of mississippi so if this is verified there's going to be a lot of problems here with
[00:21:53.930]dryness in the month of june and years where we had dry june's you know 2006 88 2002 and 2012
[00:22:01.110]are some examples and you'll notice that we tended to have high pressure anomalous high
[00:22:07.190]pressure kind of the same place where the european model is suggesting that high pressure
[00:22:12.530]may be so again if this verifies this is this is trouble absolute trouble for a lot
[00:22:18.090]of the central us if we look at where the uh upper or the 500 millibar height anomalies
[00:22:24.170]were uh in you know those years so this is like a positive 06 88 2012 and 02 you know
[00:22:30.330]again we saw bridging here off the north atlantic trough the east strong ridge across a lot
[00:22:36.030]of the north central us and getting into southern canada and 850 millibars where we would tend
[00:22:41.530]to want to see a strong low-level jet to help bring up that moisture from the gulf and you
[00:22:48.070]convection across the central us this basically shows that with the ridging at 500 or 850
[00:22:54.650]millibars being more prevalent here across portions of the midwest uh we would see a strong
[00:23:00.030]easterly flow basically translation means this would cut off moisture from the gulf
[00:23:04.990]if we had this type of uh upper air pattern month of june um now again uh i'm not suggesting that
[00:23:12.090]this is the this is willing to verify but i'm just saying that if we do see something like this
[00:23:18.050]shape up with the month of june which i do think is possible that we are you know not going to have
[00:23:22.530]the forcing that we would need to get precipitation and we're certainly not going to have the moisture
[00:23:26.470]return that we need to get precipitation so i think this is going to be absolutely critical
[00:23:29.810]that the next two weeks delivers good moisture to a lot of the century west because the month
[00:23:34.550]of june may not deliver a whole lot and years where we've had very dry junes it's generally not
[00:23:41.210]been good news for the remainder of the summer we take a look at the precipitation anomalies in june
[00:23:48.030]of 06 88 2002 and 2012 was a composite so again uh pretty dry across the almost not the entire
[00:23:54.930]country but certainly most of the country outside maybe the northeast and very very warm here across
[00:24:00.870]the north central part of the country with in particularly the great plains region um so again
[00:24:06.870]this would mean we probably have a lot of days with extra heat so we've already seen some heat
[00:24:11.590]up here in this portion of the country this would if this were to verify this would indicate that we
[00:24:18.010]we have seen june's as a general rule have been warmer here a lot in the last couple of decades
[00:24:24.490]that's just more of a signal of climate change uh but this would basically suggest that we would
[00:24:29.890]have almost even enhanced warming compared to that in the month of june if if this were to verify so
[00:24:35.130]again watch where that bermuda high if we start seeing signal in the models that that bermuda
[00:24:39.670]high is likely to be over by the azores for a good portion month of june or even two weeks in june
[00:24:44.910]uh that may be real trouble for places where we're dealing with drought and
[00:24:47.990]if we do not get the moisture we need here the next couple of weeks
[00:24:51.430]drought outlook that was released at the end of april i some of this i find almost puzzling that
[00:24:57.190]it shows drought removal likely here across portions of southwestern nebraska that is
[00:25:01.490]absolutely not the most likely scenario uh so i've drawn it red places i think are pretty likely to
[00:25:07.530]go back into drought that where they don't have it uh so again where they do have the yellow that
[00:25:11.930]would indicate drought is likely to develop i've highlighted in gray areas i think are possibly
[00:25:17.970]going to drought by the end of july so i think this is going to be conditional on how much
[00:25:22.310]moisture we get here the next couple weeks and just how dry june is if june ends up not being
[00:25:28.110]too terribly dry particularly once we get east of mississippi i don't think drought is going to be
[00:25:33.490]a major problem for the first portion of the summer in the central eastern corn belt uh not
[00:25:38.910]probably not the southern plains either at least not in the next immediate term but again i think
[00:25:43.730]this is area we're going to watch very carefully uh to see how much precipitation get next couple
[00:25:47.950]to see what how june turns out because based on swum moisture there's not a lot of room for air
[00:25:53.590]particularly across the northern portion of illinois and it's starting to dry out in iowa too
[00:25:57.950]so i don't think it would take a significantly long dry period a month of june to you know start
[00:26:03.390]getting some real drought pressure here across the central corn belt southern plains i think that's
[00:26:08.210]an area that we're going to have to watch out for as we move into the summer uh historic precedent
[00:26:12.330]suggests that we may dry out pretty quickly so you know that portion of the world tends to have a
[00:26:17.930]geologic whiplash it's not that unusual go from very wet to very dry it would not be the first
[00:26:23.530]time they've had a very wet spell in the spring turn over absolutely bone dry for a couple of
[00:26:27.650]months in the summer some rally from the cpc shows below average favorite across pretty much the
[00:26:33.270]entire western portion of country wet east showing warm being favored across pretty much the entire
[00:26:38.030]country european model shows they're favoring dry you know kind of the same regions of the country
[00:26:44.470]wetter further east warm you get here the central u.s so
[00:26:47.910]again there's this most signals uh right now show warm dry for you know a lot of our region
[00:26:54.950]cf cfs actually interestingly enough has uh kind of gotten less bullish on uh a lack of
[00:27:02.050]precipitation and warm temperatures across the north central u.s i don't trust the cfs as much
[00:27:07.770]as i do some of the other models but it is still a somewhat reputable model and again i actually
[00:27:12.690]hope this is a it's right solution not that this for low average precipitation nebraska
[00:27:17.890]but this is certainly looks a lot better than it did for the projection for the summer earlier in
[00:27:24.170]the year so i don't know if this is picking up on uh maybe having a little bit more atmospheric
[00:27:29.490]momentum getting a more active jet into the u.s this summer that may be really kind of helping
[00:27:35.870]keep some of those blocking patterns at bay and that maybe this is picking up on maybe an earlier
[00:27:40.870]developing el nino maybe we are starting to get better moisture returning into the united states
[00:27:47.870]not entirely sure what this is picking up on it could be picking up on the ridge this baby is
[00:27:51.890]going to be enhanced over the northwestern united states we have better northwest flow
[00:27:55.050]keeping temperatures maybe it's seasonal for a lot of the corn belt again that would actually
[00:28:00.490]be very very advantageous that is certainly possible i don't want to rule it out but right
[00:28:05.590]now there are more signs pointing to trouble or major trouble than there are benign conditions
[00:28:11.510]so what i'm showing you here is what i'm going to call my grand forks early 95 degree rule
[00:28:17.850]so grand forks does occasionally get pretty warm early in the season and if you go back to 1980 the
[00:28:25.770]year so they fit 95 degrees before memorial day 1980 85 87 88 2006 so again 2006 is kind of an
[00:28:34.290]88 or showing up as some you know a little too often for my liking here but which is interesting
[00:28:42.210]that grand forks 2024 is his warmest year on record and a lot of the last 10 years have been in their top 10
[00:28:47.830]warmest years but they haven't had a lot of recent early season heat this year is the first they've
[00:28:52.850]had that in a little while so the years where we've had a lot of heat early in the northern plains
[00:28:58.150]are 80 85 87 8 2006 now again 85 wasn't a horrible year for a lot of the corn belt it's pretty dry
[00:29:05.410]across portions of iowa 87 yields weren't terrible but again we had a lot more moisture work with the
[00:29:11.130]start of the season that we currently have it certainly 80 88 and 2006 are certainly not years
[00:29:17.810]that you want to be compared to uh for a lot of the portion of the century west uh certainly down
[00:29:23.330]here across the southern plains those 80 and 2006 are pretty bad 88 obviously being horrendous here
[00:29:28.470]across a lot of the central north century west and if you look at temperature anomalies in those
[00:29:33.150]years again uh you know cooler west where we probably had more troughing and more of a ridge
[00:29:39.750]so again what this basically is showing is that if the historical press it was suggested if you get
[00:29:45.450]early season heat up here
[00:29:47.790]as a result of having a strong upper level ridge it does tend to come back and somewhat persist
[00:29:53.330]for a good portion of the summer and i if that is a signal that is going to come to fruition then i
[00:30:00.950]do think that something that looks like this map would certainly be possible as we head into the
[00:30:05.130]summer and again this does match up pretty well that with the pmm so that pacific birdie animal
[00:30:11.210]i talked about earlier if that is a persistent or a dominant signal this summer with that ridge
[00:30:17.770]over the central u.s so again when we've had that heat up here the northern plains early we tend to
[00:30:22.810]had a strong ridge you know kind of centered over the north uh kind of the somewhere between uh you
[00:30:29.090]know omaha and grand forks and what you tend to see in the summer is that tends to be displaced
[00:30:33.690]a little bit south and southeastward so i mean it really kind of uh you know more or less it's
[00:30:38.150]kind of crushed a lot of the central u.s with moisture and certainly keep things quite warm
[00:30:42.150]so again this is just historical precedent suggests there is
[00:30:47.750]possibility having some trouble as we head into summer late summer outlook from the european
[00:30:52.790]model shows war uh so it's warm and dry across the western u.s wetter east so another sign just
[00:30:59.790]says you know we are likely to be drier there is a possibility of course that this doesn't come to
[00:31:04.790]fruition and of course if we end up with that ridge displaced quite a bit further toward the
[00:31:09.170]west or toward the south we may get decent precipitation at times in the summer here
[00:31:13.690]across the corn belt i am not discounting that possibility if we end up something that looks
[00:31:17.730]a little more like 2023 which would be really bad news for the gulf coast region with heat
[00:31:21.810]and dryness that you know would be not the worst thing in the world for us up here we certainly
[00:31:26.530]would still have some stretches of heat but we would also have the moisture that we would need
[00:31:30.090]to get through the summer uh and that would be you know i think that would mean that we are
[00:31:33.730]probably looking at uh yields on corn and soybean probably being at least closer to trend uh but
[00:31:39.670]some of the stuff i've been showing you here if that does come to fruition we are not only not
[00:31:43.150]looking at at trend condition you're probably looking at the worst off trend conditions we've
[00:31:47.710]2012. okay just to summarize finish up here again there's good news good chances of moisture for the
[00:31:55.130]next couple weeks for the northern plains and corn belt this is just i cannot stress how important
[00:31:59.890]this is going to be for nebraska and probably for a lot of the western corn belt even getting
[00:32:03.750]illinois we absolutely need to get you know at least two to three inches of good moisture put
[00:32:09.470]in the ground before you go in the month of june because i do think there is a risk that we turn
[00:32:17.690]if we can get um a couple of really good rains in june if the overall frequency of precipitation
[00:32:23.410]in june is down then that's a different story we did see something like that in 2021 i still
[00:32:30.050]think 2021 is a possible analog we've sort of moved a little bit away from that but you know
[00:32:35.050]that summer we didn't see frequent precipitation across all this region we did get it it was
[00:32:39.490]usually enough to kind of put enough moisture in the ground got to keep things going for a little
[00:32:43.550]bit longer that is certainly a possibility but i also think it possibly something a little
[00:32:47.670]bit more like 2006 maybe even a couple of years in 1980s would be possible in terms of how warm
[00:32:54.310]and dry we may be across a lot of this region and so neutral favor through the summer so la nina is
[00:33:00.610]not much of a risk but you know again i la nina is i think blamed a little too much for drought in
[00:33:06.350]the summer months i think we there are other factors that tend to be a little bit more problematic for
[00:33:11.850]drought in our portion of the country and certainly a negative pmm pdo the combination of those things
[00:33:17.650]will be important this summer i think it's really going to have to watch just to see you not only
[00:33:23.330]just where that bermuda high is off the atlantic coast or in the atlantic if that's closer bermuda
[00:33:28.230]the closer u.s and then you know that's not that's a much different ball game than it being
[00:33:32.610]closer to the azores or closer to iceland which is where it tends to be when we have drought here
[00:33:37.710]in the central u.s in the summer but if that pmm is a dominant signal of summer and we keep if
[00:33:42.590]those northeasterly trade winds from the baja over toward hawaii if they persist and that stays cold
[00:33:47.630]then i think that's going to run the risk of getting that trough off the west coast that ridge
[00:33:52.670]in the in the central u.s that would be trouble that would that the ice states certainly illinois
[00:33:57.950]and iowa would not be spared from uh trouble in that scenario wild card of course there is a
[00:34:05.610]projection there would be at least a somewhat active in hurricane season in the atlantic and
[00:34:10.390]maybe in the gulf depending on where those storms track that certainly could bring some needed
[00:34:17.610]the eastern u.s it doesn't usually bring good moisture to the western corn belt but if we can
[00:34:23.210]get to not that i'm cheering for hurricanes anywhere in the u.s but if we get some hurricanes
[00:34:28.810]if we do get some tropical moisture up in the midwest this summer that would maybe offset some
[00:34:33.190]of um what we may not be getting otherwise so that's my story and thank you for listening i
[00:34:40.010]will get this put up on the crop watch page for those of you that could not attend this in person
[00:34:43.770]talk to you next month
[00:34:47.590]you
[00:34:48.210]you
[00:34:48.830]you
[00:34:49.450]you
[00:34:50.070]Thank you.

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Second Tuesday at 9 — May 13, 2025

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