Forecasters say the mild weather Iowans are enjoying should continue for the next couple of weeks. DTN meteorologist Bryce Anderson says he’s been astonished over the warm temperatures the Midwest saw during the winter months and now after the first week of spring.
“Everything has been very warm, very mild across the board,” Anderson says. “These temperature departures that we’ve seen are just mind boggling when you’re talking about stations that are running not just 20 degrees above normal, but in some cases, 40 degrees above normal.”
Anderson says farmers in some states have already started planting corn. “We’ve got reports of corn not only having been planted, but already starting to spike and emerge in parts of Illinois,” Anderson says. “There are producers in the western corn belt now that are planning to take a chance on at least parts of their acreage if things continue as they are.”
He says it appears the mild weather will continue into the first part of April. “As far as what the models are showing over the next couple of weeks, there really isn’t any cold air,” Anderson says. “You might have conditions getting down into the upper 30s for one night but it’s night like we’re dipping into the low 30s or upper 20s or anything like that.”
Anderson says the mild conditions we’re enjoying now may cause some problems for farmers later in the year year, especially when it comes to a lack of soil moisture. “If it stays on this above-normal temperature track, then what does that do as far as taking out soil moisture reserves and putting crops at stress as we go into the summer?” Anderson says.
“It’s going to be a point of observance and it’s going to be a point of concern.” For the week ahead, most of Iowa will be in the 60s and 70s for high temps. The normal high for Des Moines today is 54.