When I was very young, I remember my father talking about “knee high by the Fourth of July”.  As I got older I thought that expression was so strange for it seemed the corn was usually “man high” by the Fourth of July. Obviously, the excessive rains and cooler temperatures have had an impact this year! While the above-normal precipitation from April and May may have tempered in June, Indiana is still getting “normal” amounts of rain on relatively saturated soils (Figure 1). In fact, preliminary data from June suggests that most of Indiana was near normal for precipitation with the southern third well above normal. Average temperatures in June were also near normal to a few degrees below normal. How will July end up? If it matches the climatological “normal” July, then average daily temperatures would be 70°F-75°F across the northern part of the state and above 75°F in[Read More…]

The biggest topic seems to be how wet it is and how much more rain Indiana can expect. So far, May has experienced near-normal precipitation throughout the central part of the state with 0.5”-2” in southern and northern regions (Figure 1).  Combining this with April’s precipitation, however, means the soil moisture is still 60mm to over 80mm above average (Figure 2), causing saturated soils and the propensity for flooding anytime precipitation occurs. Speaking of which, 0.25”-1.5” of additional precipitation is expected over the next 7 days with the lower amounts favoring the northwestern part of the state.  Could there be drying beyond that? The climate outlook for May 16-22 is indicating slight probabilities for below-normal precipitation in the northern counties, but the rest of the state is statistically uncertain to predict above- or below-normal precipitation with confidence. However, keep in mind that normal precipitation (based upon 1981-2010 data) during that[Read More…]