Beneficial rains across parts of the Western Corn Belt

Beneficial rains across parts of the Western Corn Belt

Across the Corn Belt, showers and thunderstorms west of the Mississippi River are providing beneficial moisture for filling corn and soybeans. Pockets of drought persist, however, across the southern and eastern Corn Belt.

On the Plains, showers are most numerous across central portions of the region, including parts of Kansas and Nebraska. Elsewhere, unrelenting heat persists on the drought-affected southern Plains, while late-season warmth favors small grain harvesting and other fieldwork on the northern Plains.

In the South, rain is mostly confined to Florida’s peninsula, while cool conditions linger along the Atlantic Coast. Elsewhere, hot, dry weather continues to stress pastures and immature summer crops.

In the West, late-season warmth and mostly dry conditions are promoting fieldwork and crop maturation. The Northwestern winter wheat harvest is nearly complete, but little more than one-third of the spring wheat had been harvested by August 28 in Idaho (37% harvested) and Washington (35%).

In the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern States, recovery efforts from Hurricane Irene will proceed under a favorably warm, dry weather regime.

Farther south and west, showers will linger for much of the week across Florida’s peninsula, while a series of weak cold fronts will generate occasional showers from the northern and central Plains into the Midwest. Tropical moisture will begin to spread toward the western and Gulf Coast States, and may generate drought-easing rainfall by week’s end.

Elsewhere, a surge of cool air will arrive in the Northwest during the second half of the week, and reach the Plains and Midwest during the Labor Day weekend.

Looking ahead, the  6- to 10-day outlook calls for above-normal temperatures across the southern Atlantic region and the western half of the U.S., while cooler-than-normal weather will prevail from the Mid-South into the eastern Corn Belt. Meanwhile, near- to below-normal precipitation across the majority of the nation will contrast with wetter-than-normal conditions in the East and parts of the Southwest.


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