Weather

Mild weather expanding across the Plains

Across the Corn Belt, below-normal temperatures east of the Mississippi River contrast with mild weather farther west. Snow squalls downwind of the Great Lakes continue to produce locally heavy accumulations.

On the Plains, mild, breezy weather continues to deplete topsoil moisture, leaving winter wheat in need of rain or snow to sustain current crop conditions. In fact, record-setting warmth is returning to the northern High Plains, where Friday’s high temperatures will approach or reach 60°.

In the South, rain is falling across southern Texas. Elsewhere, cool, dry weather favors any late-autumn fieldwork. However, winter grains and cover crops are experiencing varying degrees of drought stress in several areas, including the mid-South and the southern Atlantic coastal plain.

In the West, offshore winds across coastal southern California are again increasing and becoming locally erratic. The deadly Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties is 35% contained and has burned approximately 250,000 acres of vegetation and destroyed nearly 1,000 structures. Elsewhere, foggy, stagnant conditions persist across the valleys of the interior Northwest, but a few showers are arriving in the Pacific Northwest.

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