Yesterday, I saw a tweet from an Iowa farmer showing the dry riverbed in a portion of the Cedar River, and that is not a good sign to start the year. If we were in an El Niño weather pattern like we supposedly have been, we should be seeing moisture, based on historical data. We are not. What’s more disturbing is that a few meteorologists think we may already be switching back to the La Niña side of the equation. La Niña is the pattern that brings us cooler and drier weather. If this is the case, dry conditions could be returning before they ever totally disappeared.
If you subscribe to the climate cycle as some weather scientists are talking about, we are smack dab in the middle of what was predicted to be the driest part of the cycle, not seen since the dust-bowl era.
No matter if you are a climate change advocate, climate cycle supporter, or whatever, the current situation is dry. But there is a little hope possibly as we enter what is normally a wetter season of the year. John Baranick is a meteorologist with DTN, and he talks about the unusual winter that has not lent itself to drought recovery as we had hoped.
As far as the rebuilding of soil moisture goes, the southern states are winning that race.
We’re not seeing any of the typical snowpacks in the Northern Plains and Pacific Northwest this year. However, before you panic, this is not the first time this has happened, and it certainly falls in the realm of the normal ebb and flow of weather patterns.
Baranick is hopeful that the cooler and wetter weather is already well on its way to offer us some relief and get our soil ready to grow another crop.
