View From The Cab

By David Tollefson, Columnist

As I write this on March 23, most of us can look out our windows or drive anywhere and see mostly snow or ice, right?

Airplanes flying over west central Minnesota would pretty much confirm that. It has been several days since there has been measurable snow, so state and county highways are just about 100% clear. But county gravel roads and township gravel roads are a whole different story. They are a mess, and will be a mess for quite a while. Our farm fields are just about 100% covered with snow, with only higher spots in fields showing a little bit of soil clear of snow.

On DTNag on Tuesday, March 21, weatherman John Baranick on Ag Weather Forum commented on the above headline:

Deep and heavy snowpack has built up during the winter from Montana to Wisconsin. The depth is so great that it is a couple months’ worth of precipitation locked into the snow. Modeled snow water equivalent, or the amount of water contained within the snowpack, is around 4 to 6 inches over a vast area sitting on top of the soils. Some areas have less and some have more, but this 4-to-6-inch range would be the equivalent of an average total for May and June for Bismarck, April and May for Fargo, and March and April for Minneapolis. 

There have been some incredible pictures during the winter of large storm systems producing blizzards in these areas that have buried roadways in massive drifts or built huge piles on the ends of driveways and decks. But all that water is going to be released this spring. It is just a matter of when and how quickly.

Obviously, a slower melt would be preferred as that would produce the least amount of flooding and greatest amount of soil penetration. However, if it is too slow, spring planting in these areas would likely be delayed. On the flip side, if the melting is fast, overland flooding would be a likely result and much of this water would run off instead of percolating into the soils, where drought still exists for a lot of these areas. Therefore, this will end up being a Goldilocks-type of preferred scenario, fast, but not too fast.

So, taking a look at the forecast for the next couple of months, what sort of conditions are we likely to see? Well, the active weather pattern that has produced a lot of the snowfall over the winter and early spring remains intact going through April, but that might not translate to a snowier pattern for this area. The preferred storm track will be mostly to the south, which may help to limit additional snowfall into the region. It is unlikely that precipitation does not occur, including as snowfall, for this region however.

But, it will also be a colder pattern overall. That will limit the melting for the next couple of weeks. We have to remember that average temperatures are rising, and even below-normal temperatures could still be well enough above freezing to induce some melting. Overall, this cooler pattern should be preferred, but if it is much colder than forecast, the melting may be too slow.

DTN Long-Range Weather Risk Analyst Nathan Hamblin believes that by the time we get to mid-April, the middle of the country could be looking at a warmup. “The slow warming trend in the North-Central U.S. will keep river flooding at bay for now. If enough snow water equivalent can linger into week four (mid-April), more rapid melting could get area rivers to swell.” He did mention that while the risk is greater for higher temperatures for the last half of April, it is not a guarantee. The Northern Plains is still in a spot that could lean colder going into May.

Hamblin’s forecast does raise the question about how quickly this year’s snowpack will melt. Here is hoping that the weather pattern is at least warm enough to induce some slow, but progressive melting during the next few weeks before warmer conditions speed up the process. It could be a messy situation for northern areas of the country prior to spring planting, but we continue to wait and see.

Jamie Mosel, extension climate resilience educator at the Minnesota Climate Action Project, says “Right now, the snow is probably not something to worry about for fieldwork. If it’s still snowing heavily in April, that would be more troublesome. So, we might not get an early planting season in the case of late snow plus a cold spring. What is more worrisome when it comes to accessing fields in the spring is heavy rainfall. That has caused delays in the past, including in 2019 for example.    

“Crop year 2019 was so delayed by wet conditions that,” according to USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey, “U.S. corn planting failed to reach the halfway mark by May 19 for the first time on record.”

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As I write this, the temperature in late morning is 11 degrees. According to Weather.us, the average high temperature for Starbuck in March is 36  degrees. I doubt if it will make that today. The next couple days, according to the Weather Channel, will have highs in the mid-30s. Then there are three days in the high 20s by the time you read this. There are no highs in the 40s predicted for the rest of March. The only 40 in the April forecast is the 6th.

AND, snow is predicted for the last 3 days of March. Carry on!

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Please contact David Tollefson with thoughts or comments on this or future columns at: adtollef@hcinet.net