Forecasts indicate the weather will remain cool and damp in the Upper Midwest for the next couple of weeks, slowing the fall harvest. Meteorologist Bryce Anderson says rainfall amounts won’t be that great, perhaps a half to three-quarters of an inch, but that’s enough to stop the combines.
“The issue is, of course, now that we move into November, that daylight length is considerably less,” Anderson says. “The power of the sun to dry things out is also a lot weaker, so that leads to the fact that it doesn’t take very much moisture in order to cause some slow-downs when we think about harvest.”
On the bright side – Anderson doesn’t see any sort of winter storm brewing in the next couple of weeks. Anderson says the combination of a large trough of low pressure over the western part of the country and a ridge of high pressure over the Southeast are putting the squeeze on the Midwest.
“We tend to be in a spot where we can have greater precipitation than normal…and then temperatures are going to be kind of variable, but in general they stay on the chilly side,” Anderson says, “so we have had a few days in the last 10 days where it’s been quite nice, but that’s kind of at a premium as we look out over the next week to two weeks.”
Anderson works for DTN/The Progressive Farmer ag news service.
(Reporting by Dan Skelton, KICD, Spencer)