Ag Weather Forum

Several good weather days during the past week have allowed seeding operations to make rapid advances all across of the Canadian Prairies. While still behind schedule by as much as 5 to 10 percent to date seeding percentages are rising quickly.

We are looking at a few bumps in the road during the remainder of May and early June but the overall weather pattern is generally favorable for remaining seeding and for emergence and early development of crops. Soil temperatures have been rising at a steady pace thanks to some warm, sunny days.

Soil moisture values are being rated mostly in the good to excellent category for most areas with excessive amounts only making up a small percentage of crop land. Locally heavy rains today will not help areas that are too wet but drier conditions should be expected to return during the weekend into next week. Some rain may move through far southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba again early next week.

The weather patterns across North America continue to move from a mid to late spring look and with a large pool of warm ocean water across the North Pacific south of Alaska we may continue to see a pattern of off and on wet weather along with near or slightly below normal temperatures as we enter early summer.

The reason is that a tendency for a ridge to be located near the warm water pool across the North Pacific should lead to a trough across western Canada at times. A trough will keep temperatures from getting really warm and allow for a few episodes of wet weather but enough sunny, mild weather should still occur to keep crops happy for most areas.

Farmers should be able to take advantage of good weather days during the upcoming week or two to complete seeding but should also be aware that some wet, cool days will be thrown into the mix as well. The overall outlook as we head toward early summer for crop development from a weather standpoint is mostly favorable.

We will have to keep an eye on the potential of the pattern becoming a little too wet at some point but as long as there are is a good mix of sunny, mild days in between most farmers should be pretty happy after getting the seeding finished. Computer model forecasts for June continue with the theme of slightly cooler and wetter than normal conditions.

Doug Webster can be reached at doug.webster@dtn.com

(ES)

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