Rain, rain, glorious rain!!! We are happily finally getting some much-needed rain in quantities that actually can help us recover the depletion of soil moisture from over the first month of this year. The nice part is that it really is not hampering any major field activities right now so that is good.
So far this year as of January 29 I have had 5.28” of rain. This is more rain than we have had for a month in quite some time. Included in our precipitation was 4” of snow that fell late night January 5 into the morning of January 6. The nice part is this precipitation has come fairly slowly as good soaking rains.
Most of the rain had fallen on non-frozen ground and always less than 1” in a given day. We endured significant cold over the last couple of weeks with multiple days well below freezing. The coldest air temperature I observed was -6° but there were a few days that we could not even climb up above 0. The last week we have gotten a reprieve in the temperatures and have had highs back up in the 40s with some 50s promised at some point in the near future. The long-range temperatures are forecasted to stay at or above freezing for the next week.
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Photo Credit: gettyimages-sasiistock
Categories: Illinois, Crops, Harvesting