Ag Weather Forum

Mild, Dry Weather Improves W. Canada Harvest Conditions

Doug Webster
By  Doug Webster , DTN Senior Ag Meteorologist

The snow, wind, and low temperatures of last week certainly put a damper on this year's crop and harvest across Western Canada. The wet, cold conditions certainly raised concern about loss in crop quality across much of the region. Frost and freezing weather were more common across Alberta and Saskatchewan where some damage occurred to immature crops. Manitoba also received some crop damage, but frosts were of short duration and were not as widespread as areas further to the west.

Hopefully much of the bad news for this year's crop is behind us as we now move into a much more favorable weather pattern for late-maturing crops and a resumption of swathing and harvest. The dreaded trough that took its toll on Western Canada has found its way into eastern Canada and most signs point to a developing ridge for Western Canada during most of the next week to 10 days.

This ridge should steer most of any significant storms well to our north and allow for a much warmer weather pattern. Temperatures should average above normal, if not well-above normal at times, through the end of next week. This is good news for late-maturing crops. With a mostly dry weather pattern expected areas that have been too wet for harvest should dry out enough to allow for machinery to get out into the fields.

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The turnaround in the weather pattern may be partly due to the developing weak El Nino across the tropical waters of the Pacific. During recent weeks, sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific have warmed to levels high enough to alert us that an El Nino is getting started.

During a typical El Nino, Western Canada tends to see milder-than-normal temperatures and less-than-normal precipitation. The wet weather through the U.S. Southwest into Texas also fits in with El Nino conditions.

Hopefully the warmer, drier weather pattern sticks around long enough so that producers can complete harvest activities during the next two or three weeks. Model products that extend outward into October continue to imply a mild, dry weather pattern for Western Canada into the first half of the month. This does not mean we will not see a brief episode of showers and cooler weather once in a while but the overall pattern should average out to be mild and dry.

Once we reach the second half of October it may become a little more difficult to fend off some colder weather and snow/rain activity as the location of the jet stream normally starts to shift southward whether we have and El Nino or not. Hopefully farmers can make good use of the next two or three weeks and complete most of this seasons' harvest.

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

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Bryce Anderson
9/19/2014 | 5:34 AM CDT
There is certainly a slow start to harvest in the Prairies. The Saskatchewan ag department reports that 23 percent of the crop was reported as harvested as of September 15, which is behind every year of the last five except 2010, where only 14 percent was harvested as of September 13.