Snowless winter a worry for US farmers

It is early January, a time when farm fields in the US Midwest should be blanketed with white snow. Instead, the only color is brown.

The soil lies uncovered missed by this season’s snow storms and deprived of moisture needed to give crops a proper start this spring and during the hot summer growing season.     

The dry conditions can have global implications as the region’s crops are largely why the United States is the world’s largest exporter of corn, soybeans, and wheat.

The concerns this year were particularly acute for the region’s northwestern areas, including Minnesota and northern Iowa, which had very dry autumn. These areas are currently rated in drought condition by the US National Weather Service.     

“We haven’t seen this dry of soil in southern Minnesota in at least 10 years,” said Pete Boulay, a climatologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.     

“We started the year with adequate soil moisture, even above average. Then the tables turned by September and we went to below average,” Boulay added.     

The official weekly US Drought Monitor released on Thursday by a team of national, state and academic climatology experts shows the stretch from northern Iowa to southern Minnesota under moderate to severe drought conditions.      

The brown fields are an about face from recent years when the Corn Belt was had one snowstorm after another and saw total precipitation well above 10-year averages.     

Iowa and Minnesota together produce about a quarter of the US corn and soybeans. In Iowa, the top corn and soybean state, only 2,6 inches of snow fell last month, compared to 13,5 inches during December of 2010 and a near-record December snowfall of 24,1 inches two years ago.     

Snow also insulates the ground and provides a protective cover for dormant winter wheat plants.     

“There’s not much of a window before the next growing season gets started. So we have to rely on rainfall in late March and April — even normal rainfall then is probably not going to get us a full profile of soil moisture in northwest Iowa,” said Iowa climatologist Harry Hillaker.     

There is a slight tendency for the upper Midwest to be dry during a La Nina, a weather anomaly that occurs every couple years. La Nina’s impact is stronger in the southern United States, which is experiencing severe drought, climatologists say.     

The rest of the Midwest, from southern Iowa eastward to Ohio, is in much better shape than the northwest, after autumn rains recharged soil moisture, weather experts said.     

“Right now the ground is frozen and the next rain event if we do get one — nothing on the horizon just yet — chances it will fall on frozen ground and won’t be much benefit for soil moisture,” Hillaker said.