The Farmer's Forecast: Hope for Rain
Nick Mikulas
There’s hope on the horizon! It starts this weekend, and it’s possible that we could see a decent rain late next week into next weekend. I don’t like to get too specific, or excited about stuff that 8-10 days out, but it’s better to see solid hints for rain than nothing at all.
The drought continues to expand across the area, with the D3 extreme drought almost doubling in area across Louisiana. Last week, 24% of the state was in a D3, and we are now close to 45%. 100% of Louisiana is now at least abnormally dry, so rain would be welcome for everyone. It looks like a front will move through this weekend and bring a general 1/2 to 1 inch of rain from Saturday afternoon into early Sunday. That front will also cool most of us back into the 70s for highs, and 50s for lows for a few days to start next week.
Beyond that front, there could be a little rain around Tuesday or Wednesday, but the next good chance for widespread rain would be around Friday or Saturday of next week. This is a difficult system, and timing could certainly change. This rain would be the product of a large, slow moving, upper level low, and those are notoriously difficult to forecast this far out. Models are in pretty solid agreement for a beneficial rain late next week into the weekend, but I’m not ready to take that to the bank quite yet. Hopefully I’ll have good news for you next week!
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.