May is just around the corner and State Climatologist Trent Ford says there are not too many obstacles in the forecast for farmers looking to get fieldwork done. While looking ahead at what is in store for farmers, he says that current outlooks show May having a strong chance for above-normal temperatures with chances of precipitation going into June.
“In the last couple of years, we’ve seen these situations where the start of April has been warm and dry and then we moved into this cool wet pattern that lasted for the rest of April and into May,” says Ford. “It doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case this year we may see some temperatures dip into the 30s or 40s occasionally in northern Illinois, but that’s typical for May- but no long-term cooldown. That should prime the pump at least from the soil temperature standpoint to get a lot of fieldwork activity going.”
Ford adds that when you head into the summer months, there are hints of drier patterns in the late summer.
