Weather Forecast (04/28/22)

Because of the weather delays in getting Plant 22 started, this first weather summary and outlook will be more aimed at giving out NDAWN information than a weather forecast. It appears there will be little if any field work possible in the next week with another rain/snow system this weekend. Temperatures will also remain well below average during the next 7 days or more. The rain/melted snow from the past week is presented in Figure 1.

The graphic above is from https://ndawn.info/ .  If you are unaware of that website, it is an addition to our current website (https://ndawn.ndsu.nodak.edu/) that is mobile compliant. This means that the maps and the menus will adjust to the size of your screen. Our main website can be difficult to use with a phone, but this site is much easier to use with your smart phone. It does not have all the features of the main website, but it has many current weather maps available, plus some soil temperature and moisture information as well (see Figure 2, next page).

Although you will not be able to select your specific planting date, under the “CROP DATA” tab you will find tools for several row crops as well as pre-selected dates to use for calculating growing degree days (GDDs). If you raise sugar beets, cercospora guidance will become available on June 16 and sugar beet maggot guidance is already available. Plus, under the “CURRENT WEATHER” tab there will be maps available for a number of different parameters, plus a few maps that are not available on our other website. 

In the next Crop and Pest Report, I will start presenting my forecast for the upcoming week. Once we get into the planting season, I will be posting other information like the current soil temperatures at 4 inches that can be found in Figure 3 as well as GDD maps and projected GDDs for the next week.