PEORIA, Ill. — Meteorologist Mike McClellan of the Mobile Weather Team visited the Peoria County Farm Bureau on February 28 to offer a packed house of farmers his projections for the 2023 growing and harvest seasons. McClellan, who is often called on to serve as the official meteorologist for Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour events, offered a forecast for the summer that could mirror the near-perfect peak growing and harvest season weather seen throughout much of Illinois in 2022 — if conditions align in a conducive manner.

First, McClellan looked back at the advantageous weather central Illinois farmers experienced in 2022 following a wetter than normal spring. Good planting conditions gave way to slightly below normal precipitation throughout much of the state, with perfect harvest weather aided by timely rains at key times of plant growth stage. Illinois’ harvest was better than many neighboring states where timely rains did not get to plants before harvest, the veteran meteorologist recalled. 

So far in 2023, “We have been below normal in precipitation since January, but if you move into the northern Corn Belt they’ve been smacked with lots of snow and precipitation. We ended last year basically eight inches below normal, and a lot of people were talking about how we are in a drought. We are not in a drought,” McClellan said.

In fact, the latest U.S. drought monitor reflects basically no drought conditions east of Missouri, McLellan noted. “The weather pattern is favorable to bring a lot of additional precipitation our way in the late winter-early spring. If you look at the drought severity index from February 2022 to where we are now, we’re sitting quite a bit drier but we still have ample moisture. Our tiles aren’t running nearly as much as they did a year ago. But, it’s still not terrible,” he said. 

The drought outlook from NOAA calls for most of the Corn Belt to enjoy adequate topsoil and subsoil moisture through at least the end of May. This means there will likely be multiple weather systems passing through the Corn Belt this spring, providing limited periods of dryness. This presents a favorable March-May forecast for most Corn Belt farmers, according to the meteorologist. 

“We are in a transition between a La Nina, into neutral, and then into an El Nino eventually by the latter part of summer,” McClellan said. “Any time in the Corn Belt if La Nina and El Nino are in the neutral position, that’s great growing season weather for us. We’ve gone into that neutral position just in the last week, and we’re expected to stay in neutral through most of the summer until we get into maybe a very weak El Nino scenario going into the latter part of the growing season.”

McClellan predicted that the remainder of March will be marked by below normal temperatures in the Corn Belt, with moderate temperature swings and a semi-active weather pattern occurring during the latter part of the month. For April through August, the growing season, the meteorologist said that cooler than normal temperatures could prevail, with occasional warm spells sprinkled in. 

“I would look for a lot of cloud cover in April,” said McClellan, “because the weather pattern is shaping up to be stagnant from west to east. I’m going out on a limb here by calling for minimal temperature swings in April and a not-very-active weather pattern. This is because of where we are in the whole scheme of weather pattern scenarios across the entire northern hemisphere.” 

If this scenario occurs, farmers should have little trouble getting into the fields to plant — though soil temperature could be an issue in some regions. A late frost could well be in the cards this spring, McClellan warned. 

In May, average temperatures through most of the Corn Belt should be slightly above normal with the overall weather very conducive to planting. For the summer months, July looks to be cooler and drier than normal — a much better scenario than warmer and drier than normal, he projected. 

“One of the reasons I think this is going to happen is because of our zonal weather pattern which is west to east. It looks to be very stagnant across the Midwest for most of the growing season. The driest areas will still be out in the Western Plains and through Kansas and Nebraska,” said McClellan. 

McClellan’s Mobile Weather Team has set up a special webpage tailored to farmers. To access the webpage, visit www.mobileagsolutions.com.