The Farmer's Forecast: Still Dry—and Getting Worse
Nick Mikulas
I wish I had good news. Unfortunately, I have more of the same for most of Louisiana. It does look like northwest Louisiana at least has some chance for some rainfall as we get into early next week. Elsewhere, it’ll be isolated showers, and many of us not seeing any rain for the next week.
The rain we had last week put a pause on the progression of drought conditions per the drought monitor, but given all I’m hearing from farmers, we really need to get a good rain in the next week or two or there will be some problems. As of now, I don’t see that happening unless you’re up in the Shreveport area. High pressure continues to hold strong over the southeast, and that means little to no rain chances. Extended models continue to show chances for rain beyond 7 days out, but I’m not biting on that because I’ve seen these weak signals for rain continually fade over recent weeks.
Long term, I don’t see much hope for a quick transition back to any sort of rainy pattern. The persistent high pressure should continue to keep us drier than we should be over the next month or so. The Climate Prediction Center has equal chances of above or below normal precipitation for May and June, but even that, while helpful, wouldn’t end the drought.
If I go even further than that, it looks like a strong El Niño will develop by the summer. The main things we get from a strong El Niño is reduced tropical activity, followed by a very wet fall and winter. In typical Louisiana fashion, it looks like we will go from too little rain to too much rain, and it looks like it might be too late in the season to have a positive impact on this year’s crops.
I say all this so you can do whatever is in your power to stack the deck in your favor if possible. Once it heats up into the 90s, things are going to go from bad to worse. One tiny slice of good news is that it looks like some heavy rain is possible to our north and northwest. That should help some with streamflows, and for those that are using that water to irrigate. I hope I’m wrong. It happens from time to time. But please do what you can to be prepared for a dry spring, and start to summer.