A weather expert says he expects the overall mild fall weather to continue.
Meteorologist Greg Soulje says much of the Midwest had its first hard frost Thursday night, which is a little later than average. “It’s three to five days later than usual so it’s really, climatologically speaking, this is the right time of year to have it and I suspect, althrough we’re not getting any USDA numbers out, we’re probably in good shape with harvest.”
Soulje says weather systems off the east coast and in the southwest are expected to bring some moisture. “We have Melissa that will impact the mid-Atlantic, the southeastern states in the shorter term with probably cooler, damper weather in the southeastern corn belt going into the last week of October. There’s another window of opportunity over the western and northern, northwestern corn belt, the plains after the rain of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas moves out, back into a milder and dryer spell there, so there’s another big window of opportunity evolving into the first half of November.”
Soulje says soil temperatures are a few degrees warmer than usual in most areas, which will help keep rainfall in place and put more moisture in the ground, improving soil moisture going into winter. “We should be able to get moisture in the ground before we begin to deal with rut issues, frost and freeze, and then getting some snow and frost back into the ground around here.”
Soulje is expecting mild weather patterns to continue for a while and he’s not expecting any major weather systems yet. “We’re just beginning to get into the early stages of La Nina and it’s probably going to begin to impact the weather pattern towards the holidays, the new year, and beyond.”
Soulje says it’s too soon to know if the expected La Nina weather system will bring more snow and later spring planting dates.
