Last week’s cold temperatures may have killed as much as 15% of the Plains and Midwest’s winter wheat crops, that is according to the Commodity Weather Group.
Without a protective layer of snowfall in the regions, wheat crops were left vulnerable to winter kill. The frigid conditions stretched from Montana all the way to Texas, impacting roughly 65% of the country’s hard red winter wheat.
We likely will not know the extent of the damage until dormant crops resume growth this spring.
While many are ending January on a warmer note, the mild conditions are not expected to last.
USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey says that more Arctic air is on the way.
“As we move into the late week and the weekend period we will see a little bit of a southward push of that Arctic cold front and we will unleash a new round of cold air, nothing like what we saw last week, but certainly colder air coming for the Plains, the Midwest as we move into the weekend and beyond,” Rippey explains.
He creds a weak La Niña weather pattern for the cooler-than-normal conditions, with cold air blowing in through the Arctic Sea from Siberia.
Hunter Biram, an extension economist with the University of Arkansas, is tracking Mississippi River water levels as grain shippers shift their focus to transportation following the wrap-up of fall harvest.
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