Ryan Martin’s Indiana Ag Forecast for November 6, 2018

Rain is moving through a little faster than anticipated this morning. This is not a bad thing, as faster movement promoted less chances of heavy rains sitting in one place for too long. In fact, the heavy rains are likely already done this morning in southern Indiana, and we should see just a lot of clouds and lingering light moisture through the day today over the state. Now, we are going to leave rain totals alone for the entire event, with half to 1.5” rain totals going back to moisture initiation last night. But through the daytime hours, we likely only see an additional few hundredths to a few tenths statewide. The heaviest action remains over the southern parts of the state, and lighter amounts are up north. 80% of the state will be in the above mentioned range, while the remaining 20% will see up to half an inch total (again, including last nights action).

We start to dry down tonight and see dry weather for tomorrow and Thursday too. We are a little cooler, but still stay near normal for this time of year.

Rain is back for overnight Thursday night through Friday. Moisture totals are not that impressive, a few hundredths to .4” over 70% of the state. However, temps go near to below freezing overnight Thursday night and do not recover Friday morning through much of the day. This may allow for some wet snow to mix in with our precipitation, even though it is light.

Dry for the weekend. However, we are also looking for a rather chilly weekend. Temps will be well below normal, and there is potential for Saturday to see daytime highs stay below freezing over the northern quarter to third of the state, but the sharp cooldown will be felt statewide.  Sunday can be sub-40 for highs over most of the state. This will be our first taste of a significant chill. The map above shows Saturday’s expected high temperatures for Indiana.

We stay dry Monday through Wednesday of next week. We likely see clouds from time to time, but no new precipitation. Thursday, we see Clouds build and then have a chance of scattered showers north of US 24 in the morning. The rain threat extends to statewide by mid to late afternoon and goes through the overnight. We can see from .05”-.25” with 70% coverage.

For the extended period, we are dry for next Friday and Saturday. But, then we move into another wet, active period for Sunday the 18^th through Wednesday the 21^st. We see at least 2 waves of moisture moving over the eastern corn belt in that time, perhaps more. Combined rain totals will be from .25”-.75” with the heaviest rain chances in the southern half of the state.

Harvest windows lasting more than a couple to few days will be hard to come by, since we are going to need longer lengths of time in-between precipitation events to see the ground get fit. The best window we have comes this weekend through midweek next week.