weather

Just 65 percent of the U.S. corn crop was rated in good or excellent condition in the USDA’s first assessment of the year. That figure came in well below the 72 percent rating at the end of May 2016, when farmers were headed for a record-setting harvest.

For wheat farmers in western Kansas, the heavy snow and freezing temperatures that recently swept through their region were a one-two punch that flattened a promising crop.

The U.S. is seeing its warmest period in recorded history. “The latest one-, two-, three-, four- and five year periods — ending in March — rank as the warmest in 122 years of record-keeping for the Lower 48 states, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” says The Washington Post.

The White House wants to cut funding 17 percent at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), one of the government’s chief resources for climate science, according to a budget memo from the Office of Management and Budget obtained by The Washington Post.

NOAA has shelved its La Niña watch because its forecasters see little prospect for the weather pattern, somewhat of a mirror to the better-known El Niño, for the next six months. In June, La Niña chances were 75 percent but they are now 40 percent because air and water temperatures in the southern Pacific Ocean are relatively neutral between the two weather patterns.

Colder-than-usual weather "is likely to spur further concerns over the condition of the winter wheat crop" in Russia, says The Crop Site. It points to uncertainties about the state of the crop.

Nothing says spring planting like snowfall across the upper Midwest in mid-April, does it? Up to five inches of snow fell in north central Wisconsin on Monday with forecasts of an inch or two of snow today in Detroit and Toledo.

Farm groups, seed companies and equipment manufacturers met in Kansas City to discuss common rules for gathering, use and ownership of Big Data without reaching a conclusion, says Reuters.

The National Weather Service sees an increased likelihood of an El Nino weather pattern developing by this summer and through the rest of the year.

Major to moderate flooding is likely this spring from the northern Plains southward to the Gulf Coast, with the greatest risk in the upper and middle Mississippi River basin, the Missouri River basin, and the Red River of the North, said NOAA on Thursday.