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Weather 'battle zone' sets up in forecast
While heavier-than-expected rains over the weekend in the eastern Corn Belt were notable, heat across much of the Nation's midsection was the bigger story. On Friday I thought that the most notable heat was in northeastern Iowa, southeastern Minnesota, and southern Wisconsin where highs as warm as 97 degrees at Mason City was record-setting.
On Saturday the western Corn Belt cooled off some but it was hot in the east; a notable high temperature that day was 100 degrees at Bloomington, IN. The entire weekend was hot in the Southeast, the Delta and the southern Plains with high temperature records to numerous to list, but one has to note the incredible 105 degree reading yesterday at Houston, shattering their old record high by 7 degrees and marking the first time it has ever been that warm at Houston in the month of June. (Neighboring Galveston had a record high yesterday as well...breaking a record that had stood since 1875!!!).
It will stay hot all across the Nation's midsection for today and tomorrow and more record highs will fall. Heat will be slow to abate in the southern Plains and much of the Delta, with those areas likely to still have above-normal temperatures for the 6-10 day time frame and blazing heat (100-110 degrees) likely to be seen across much of the southern Plains for much of that time frame. Much cooler weather will already be seen by Wednesday in the northern Plains and far northwestern Corn Belt, and much of the central and northern Corn Belt will be much cooler by Friday...while it stays hot in the southern Corn Belt.
What that means is quite a "battle zone" of air masses across the Midwest for late this week and will mean rain (possibly heavy and likely with severe weather) starting Wednesday night and lasting through the end of the work-week. 6-10 day rainfall should remain above normal as well in the Midwest. Eventually some rain will work into the Southeast and the eastern Delta, but rain chances for the next ten days or longer look poor for the western Delta and the southern Plains.
For the crop progress report this afternoon, I would look for the national corn planting figure to be 93%, with the soybean planting progress figure at 71%.
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