The U.S. drought monitor in July has not been much different or better from what we saw in June.
In fact, there have been notices of flash drought events in parts of the nation. That is a relatively new term. Similar to a flash flood, a flash drought comes on fast with conditions going from normal to severely dry in less than a month.
USDA Meteorologist, Brad Rippey, shares what this means for spring-planted crops in those dry areas.
“Corn from late May to early July saw a ten percentage point increase in the coverage of that crop, in drought from 19 to 29% of the production area. At the same time, soybeans in drought increased from 10 to 22% between late May and early July. Cotton due to dry development in the Delta and the Southeast seeing an increase in coverage from 51 to 68% of the production area in drought.”
Rippey says more than a third of the U.S. hay production areas are in a drought.
A farmer in Ontario is taking advantage of the drought conditions in his area. He posted this video on Twitter of a tractor trying to level out a field full of dead furrows and what he calls way too high strikeouts from years ago. You can see the tractor is stirring up a good bit of dust from the dry field.
Farmers in Maryland are facing a different weather toll today. Our friend, Ben Hushon, sent us this video of the impact a windstorm had last night on the corn crop. This video was taken in Churchville, Maryland, but Hushon says he is hearing similar reports from around the state.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to these farmers as we know how much time and effort they had put into this corn crop already.
Related:
93 Weeks and Counting: How the U.S. has broken a drought record
Drought Roundtable: Analysts reveal how farmers in their states are feeling the brunt
Windstorm rips through Corn Belt over the weekend
