Last Week’s Storms Hit the Pause Button on Planting

Storms ripped across Indiana last week, leaving plenty of flooding and, in some cases, damage behind. Hoosier Ag Today Chief Meteorologist Ryan Martin says the northern half of Indiana was hit by damaging winds, storms, and even some tornadoes.

“Most notable, we had a couple of tornadic supercells that popped up over northern parts of Indiana into southern Lower Michigan. And then we actually had a couple more that worked their way through central parts of the state. The storm tracks that I hear the most about and we’ve been digging into the most in Central Indiana, that Brownsburg to Carmel area where a tornado came through out of one of the systems over the past week, and then up north, midweek last week, we had one move through the Bourbon area.”

South of Indianapolis, significant flooding is the story.

“We’ve seen pictures of flooding off the Ohio River, the White River spilling into some spots. Very, very impressive flooding pictures. Even if we’re not seeing flooding, we picked up anywhere from 6-10+ inches of rain in southern Indiana out of this. So even if it’s not river flooding we’re dealing with, we probably have some ponding. And even without ponding, you’ve got a super moist soil profile.”

And that super moist soil profile is what will keep farmers from turning a wheel for a while according to Martin. He says Mother Nature isn’t quite ready to cooperate with scattered showers sticking around in the near-term forecast.

What’s his best prediction right now as to when farmers can get back in the field?

“I’m looking at that week after Easter as one that may start to bump our temperatures up significantly, stringing together maybe a full week of above normal temperatures,” Martin says. “That’s issue number one and that helps. But issue two is less rain to no rain. And I think as we move into that last full week of April time period, maybe we start to string together multiple dry days back-to-back. Can I give you a full 10 to 14 dry days back-to-back? Probably not.”