What the Wet Start to the Month Could Mean for Drought and Heat in June

Severe storms are threatening the central U.S. again this week. The heaviest rain is hitting areas that have already been pummeled by intense rainfall over the past month — including parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the mid-South.

“Nobody would have thought three months ago that we were going to have this much rain occurring across key crop areas, especially in the southern half of the Plains and in the Delta and Tennessee River Basin,” says Drew Lerner, president and senior agricultural meteorologist of World Weather.”

(Drew Lerner, World Weather )

The deluge of rain and flooding across those areas is causing a nightmare for farmers. They’re running out of time to get their crops in the ground, facing record amounts of prevent plant.

“We have prevent plant in front of us at this point now where there’s going to be abandonment in most parts of the Midwest, but especially that Northern Delta area,” Lerner says. “We’ve also had some rain in the Northern Plains. That’s been really good, I think. You would probably agree they were a bit dry earlier on and they got some really decent rains. But all of this has been greater than what was expected.”

It’s been the wettest spring in over 100 years in parts of the Delta. But now that we are entering June, Lerner thinks the weather pattern is starting to change.

“I think we’re on the cusp of it, but we’ve got another 10 days to go, unfortunately — at least a week. I think the models are a little bit too wet, to be honest with you, with the second week outlook. So, a lot of the rain you see here on this chart in the Southern Plains, in Texas in particular, over into the lower parts of the Delta, may be a little bit overdone,” he says.

(World Weather )

Lerner says the European model is forecasting more heavy rains for areas of the South, but he thinks it may not actually be as much as that model shows.

“What should happen as we move forward in time is that we should end up shifting everything to the north. We’re going to have a ridge building in the middle of the country that should help to push the pattern northward. I’m looking for the lower parts of the Midwest and the southeastern states to probably end up with a little better scenario as we go out in the second half of this month. I can’t see how this is going to continue all the way through the month of June,” he adds.

Some agricultural meteorologists have been seeing signs of drought since late winter. Cooler temperatures off the coast of Alaska was one major sign they’ve been watching.

The latest forecasts have also been pointing to a warmer-than-average summer when it comes to temperatures. But Lerner cautions it won’t be extreme heat for most of the country this summer.

“We have so much moisture in the soil right now that I don’t think we can get excessively hot like we have in past years. As we heat up the ground, we’re going to pull that moisture out of the soil and add humidity to the air. It’ll be a warmer-than-normal summer, but it’s not going to be excessively high,” he says.

While it won’t be extremely hot, Lerner does think it will be humid — which could keep nighttime temperatures elevated throughout the summer.

“Our nighttime lows will definitely be above average. And the afternoon highs will probably be a little warm too, but they won’t be excessively hot,” he adds.

(Drew Lerner, World Weather )

As for precipitation outlook for June, World Weather says the extremely wet start to June is creating more of a wetter bias for the month across the lower Midwest.

“The Northern Plains will turn wetter as we go into the second half of this month, as we shift everything to the north. And the one area that’s probably going be drier bias will be in Nebraska and parts of Iowa,” he says. “Those areas, of course, were previously dry. They recently got some nice rain, but they are going to reverse themselves back into a drier mode. So overall, for the key crop areas in the central part of the U.S., it certainly doesn’t look like a terrible growing season — at least for the month of June. We should get a little bit of reversal to take place.”