As Eric Snodgrass looks six weeks out to the end of March, he doesn’t like the weather pattern he sees shaping up for spring planting season – more dry conditions.
Varying levels of mild to moderate drought have dogged much of the upper Midwest, West and Southwest since last fall, and the outlook is for more of the same, according to Snodgrass, a leading U.S. meteorologist.
“I’m concerned about the way the central United States and the western Corn Belt, in particular, are going to be dealing with the risk of drought building into spring,” Snodgrass told farmers attending the Top Producer Summit in Kansas City earlier this week.
History shows that drought tends to beget drought. In six of the past 10 years with a really dry fall, Snodgrass says the spring to follow was also dry.
The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor echoes his observations. The Monitor released Thursday (Feb. 20) shows drought is impacting 45% of corn production acres, 36% of soybean production acres, 40% of spring wheat and 20% of winter wheat acres, respectively.In addition – of particular concern to beef and dairy producers – 49% of the U.S. alfalfa hay production acres are also experiencing drought.
Arctic Air Is Contributing To Drought Conditions
Snodgrass spells out what usually happens in late winter to create the moisture farmers need at planting time in the Corn Belt.
As the jet stream moves across the Pacific Ocean, it typically splits and sweeps into the West Coast from two positions – one from the northern North Pacific Ocean and the other from the southern North Pacific Ocean, close to Hawaii. The two portions of the jet stream usually then scream across U.S. western mountain ranges, picking up moisture they then deposit in portions of the Corn Belt before moving on to the East Coast and exiting the U.S. in Maine.
This year, the portion of the jet stream that normally comes from Hawaii has veered from its usual course and possibly even stalled. One indicator of that happening, Snodgrass says, is a drop off in ocean temperatures in the Baja of California and the Gulf of Alaska. The result is dry, arctic air has been moving into portions of the U.S.
For some parts of the U.S. the cold, arctic air has brought snow along with it. But the snow holds little moisture that would help alleviate the frozen dry soils. “We have some deep snow in areas right now, but it’s only got maybe two-tenths of an inch of liquid in it,” Snodgrass explains.
That’s bad news for farmers who need a full profile of soil moisture going into spring and don’t have one.
“If I’m in Iowa, Minnesota, northern Illinois, the Dakotas, even parts of Nebraska and Missouri, I’m going, holy smokes, that arctic air has prevented any sort of meaningful precipitation coming back at this point of the year,” he says.
Similar concerns were voiced by Drew Lerner, founder and president of World Weather, Inc., during the Top Producer Summit.
“If we continue bringing these cold shots of air through North America, we will have a below-normal precipitation bias [for the western Corn Belt] as we go forward through spring planting season,” Lerner explained during the taping of the U.S. Farm Report.
That’s not the meteorologists’ expectation for the eastern Corn Belt and portions of the Southeast. Lerner and Snodgrass agree those areas are likely to have plenty of moisture going into spring planting.
More Weather Trouble Brewing For Summer
If the current cold conditions continue through March, which Lerner and Snodgrass anticipate will be the case, what will likely occur is a knee-jerk reaction in the atmosphere: a warming trend will start in late March or early April and build through late spring and into early summer.
“If we warm up quickly in the spring, which is a high possibility, we could end up falling behind the eight ball a little bit more on soil moisture,” Lerner says.
While some meteorologists point to this year’s La Niña as a cause of the continued move to dryer conditions, Snodgrass and Lerner say that’s not the case.
“La Niña will be gone by the time we get into mid-March,” Lerner predicts. “This La Niña hasn’t lasted long enough to really have a big footprint in the atmosphere. As we get into April, it’ll be pretty much a non-event.”
Keep An Eye On The Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Lerner and Snodgrass believe a negative phase of what scientists call the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) could be a primary contributor to ongoing drought and higher temperatures by April. The PDO is a long-term climate pattern that affects the temperature of the Pacific Ocean and can influence weather patterns across the globe.
While the PDO has not had what Lerner calls a “tremendous amount of impact” in past years in the U.S., it’s looking more influential for the 2025 growing season.
“I’m seeing some additional cooling off the West Coast of North America that may end up leading us into a greater ridge building with all the dryness that’s in the soil and that negative PDO,” Lerner says. “I’m not ready to go all the way over with [that prediction], but that’s where I’m headed.”
The Surprising Solution To Drought
If Mother Nature continues on her worrying course, Snodgrass says continued low temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska would be a signal in early summer for farmers.
“If we get into June and it’s cool there, that is telling me that the atmosphere is not moving. And if it doesn’t move, well, all of a sudden we could find ourselves in a situation in late June into July with more drought and excess heat,” Snodgrass says.
Another worrying sign he says to watch for is where the active spring weather pattern falls. If areas of Kansas and the Great Plains see an active tornado season, Snodgrass says that means the weather pattern is more favorable for rains to fall across the Corn Belt. But if tornado warnings blare across the Southeast, Snodgrass says that’s a signal drought could be a problem this summer.
There is a solution to the troubling weather patterns, he adds, one most farmers won’t welcome – a big, wet snow on the Northern Plains.
“The No. 1 thing I’m praying for right now is an April 4 blizzard. I want a foot of snow,” Snodgrass told farmers at Top Producer Summit, many of whom laughed.
Snodgrass laughed, too, and added, “You’ll hate me for about a week, and then love me through the rest of May.”
Your next read: ‘Stay Tuned, We’ll Be Right Back With Your Forecast’
