Ag Weather Forum

Warmth Helps Prairie Harvest

Doug Webster
By  Doug Webster , DTN Senior Ag Meteorologist

El Nino is not officially in place according to the government, but we have seen many of the attributes of El Nino show their face across North and South America during the recent weeks. A couple such attributes are the warmth and mostly dry weather that the Canadian crop region has enjoyed since the mid-September burst of wintry weather.

The main jet stream has been traveling in from the Pacific Ocean across central latitudes of Canada allowing for relatively mild Pacific air to push over the Rockies and downslope across the Prairies. The lack of an upper level ridge across Western Canada and little or no blocking so far this fall has prevented any significant cold from developing across the cold air source regions of northwest and northern Canada.

This pattern has allowed crops to be swathed and harvested at a quick pace during recent weeks and for many areas the harvest is nearly complete. The timing of final harvest may be good, since there are some signs that a downward trend in temperature is about to take hold and some of the expected precipitation for early next week may not be all in the form of rain.

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The later we go into the fall, the more difficult it becomes to hold off the advances of fall and early winter weather. The days are growing shorter at a rapid pace and it is inevitable that the main jet stream flow will start to make its seasonal southward shift, even when it appears that some part of an El Nino weather pattern may try to stick around.

In the shorter term of the next two weeks, we see more chances of some colder weather and some early season snow and rain for the Prairies. We do not yet see anything that is out of the ordinary for this time of year and there still appears to be some El Nino aspects to the pattern that may modify any significant winter weather to a more benign state.

As for the upcoming winter, there are still questions to be answered: Is El Nino going to evolve and become more of a player or will it remain weak and not much of a factor? As we know, an El Nino normally gives the Prairies mild, dry weather during the winter.

Blocking like we saw last winter probably won't happen again, at least with the nearly never ending pace it had. We can't rule out blocking to appear again, but will it stick around for a period of time or just pop up and go away like we've seen during the late summer and early fall?

Blocking is the wild card in how the winter may turn out and November's weather patterns sometimes give us a clue how the winter will go. Minimal blocking and El Nino conditions will bring a winter much different than last year, while a return of some blocked patterns at times will bring back some of last winter's ugly weather at times. Hopefully we can get a better grasp as to where we are going during the next few weeks.

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

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