Mother Nature has the Midwest on a seesaw, and the ride is taking a cold turn this week after a weekend when warmer temperatures melted much of the snow on the ground from the previous weekend. Now expectations are for that ride to turn back around after a weeklong cold snap.
The good news is the cooler temperatures through this week will allow any remaining harvest activity to resume before moisture returns to the weather picture early next week.
"The next significant showers are then likely to hold off until early next week, which should allow some late harvest progress to resume. A wetter pattern then will stall remaining harvest significantly," according to Monday's Commodity Weather Group (CWG) Ag QUICKsheet. "Warming next week could allow germination in late-seeded Midwest wheat areas and will minimize winterkill risks, with needed 11- to 15-day rains also possible in the southern Plains."
This week's cold snap won't be completely absent of moisture; though widespread totals will be just around 1 inch, as much as 4 inches of snow could fall in parts of the Corn Belt this week in the central and northern Midwest, according to Matthew Christy, meteorologist with Freese-Notis Weather Inc.
That moisture won't be enough to completely impede any harvest activity this week, though; MDA Weather Services senior ag meteorologist Kyle Tapley says that although there will be spotty delays in parts of the Corn Belt, warmer temperatures beyond this five- to six-day period will keep that snow from piling up too soon . . . for now.
"The snow across the north and west-central Midwest will stall any remaining corn and soybean harvesting," Tapley says. "The forecast has trended much warmer across the Midwest in the six- to 10-day period, which should lead to melting of any snow cover that remains in place at that time."
