US Wheat/Corn Belt Weather Latest

(Freese Notis) -- We proved last year that there can be considerable crop losses in the Plains winter wheat belt if there is substantial rain at harvest, and unfortunately we are seeing a dose of that again this year.

Thunderstorms were common from late yesterday through the overnight hours from southern South Dakota southward into Texas. Coverage of that rain was far from 100 percent, but those that did see the storms saw locally heavy rain and in particular saw a lot of severe weather. Very high winds were reported at a couple locations in Nebraska, with the western part of the Texas panhandle seeing several instances of baseball- to even softball-sized hail.

Thunderstorms were still occurring early this morning in southern parts of the Texas panhandle, with a bigger area of rain and thunderstorms in southeastern Kansas through northeastern Oklahoma. The same areas that got the thunderstorms during the past 24 hours will largely be the same areas seeing additional thunderstorm activity through the end of this work-week, with the threat of severe weather each and every one of those days as well.

Given the longevity of this rainfall threat, additional total rainfall during that period in southern Nebraska southward through northern Texas should be commonly over an inch, and locally over 2.50 inches.

A couple factors are making this wet weather situation less ominous than a year ago.

First of all, we have already seen a good deal of wheat already get harvested in Texas and Oklahoma; data released on Monday afternoon showed harvest progress for those two states to be at the five-year average and well above the pace of a year ago.

Second, this does not appear to be the start of an overall wet weather pattern there, as conditions do look to dry out for the weekend and into next week. Except for far western and southwestern areas,

Corn Belt weather looks pretty quiet for the rest of this work-week and into the weekend with limited rain expected. Temperatures during that period will be cool, especially for today and tomorrow and especially in eastern parts of the region.