We finished out last week thinking we would see a fairly significant dry stretch of weather emerging, not just in the Eastern Corn Belt, but out West, too.

 

But significant changes have developed since then, and now we find ourselves looking at not one, but two major systems moving across the region in the next 10 days.

The second system is really going to shift the pattern to very wet as we move toward mid-August, and the focus will come off of concern about soybean flowering and pod fill.

High pressure is exiting the Eastern Corn Belt at midweek, and our first system will push in for Aug. 3-4. This front came out of the Northern Plains about a day and a half ago, and has strengthened considerably across the Upper Midwest.

As this low moves over the Great Lakes, its track will stay mostly in Michigan and into southwestern Ontario. But, this strong low will spawn one to perhaps two cool fronts that sweep through the Eastern Corn Belt.

These fronts on Thursday and Friday will trigger rains from a few hundredths of an inch up to about .6 inches over northern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio with coverage at 60-70 percent. That coverage will be for the two days combined – meaning the action will be somewhat hit and miss on either of the given days.

Temperatures will pull back closer to normal as these frontal boundaries pass. Dry weather is expected for this coming weekend as high pressure takes control. However, we do see potential for scattered light showers moving across Michigan and extreme northern Illinois and then dipping into the northern third of Indiana on Aug. 7. This will come with a weak upper level disturbance passing by to our north. We expect moisture totals to be less than one-quarter of an inch with coverage at 50 percent from US 24 northward.

This is truly a northern feature, with nothing farther south, and in fact, a good deal of sunshine from the I-70 corridor southward.

We have a much bigger story for next week. A massive storm complex develops in the central plains for Monday night and Tuesday, and it moves out into Missouri and the Southwestern Corn Belt on Wednesday. Rain and thunderstorm action is impressive with this system, and severe weather will be a story as the system heads our way from there, the low moves east-northeast, spreading heavy rains across the Eastern Corn Belt by the afternoon of Aug. 10.

We can see rains of 1-2 inches over nearly 90 percent of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. There is plenty of time for this system to shift or modify, but right now, it looks very, very impressive and its track is directly at the region.

This will bring a significant rain to a majority of the Eastern Corn Belt soybean crop, if the system remains on track. The map at right shows potential precipitation totals from Monday through Friday of next week.

The rest of the 10-day period looks wetter as well, as that strong system 

for next Thursday has several follow-up waves that linger across the region. We may add another half to 1 1/2 inches of rain for Aug. 11-14. Finally, around Aug. 15, we see drier air starting to reemerge.

This is a very favorable forecast for soybean development for the Corn Belt in general, and definitely east of the Mississippi River.

Ryan Martin is Chief Meteorologist for Hoosier Ag Today, a licensed Commodity Trader and the Farmer OriginationSpecialist for Louis Dreyfus Company’s Claypool Indiana Soybean Crush Plant.

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World.