Weather

Dry weather benefits Midwest harvest

   Across the Corn Belt, dry weather is promoting corn and soybean harvesting, as well as winter wheat planting. Producers harvested 15% of the U.S. soybean acreage during the week ending October 21, equal to the amount harvested during the preceding 2 weeks. However, the overall U.S. soybean harvest was just 53% complete by October 21, well behind the 5-year average of 69%.

On the Plains, cool, cloudy, foggy weather lingers across western Texas, where cotton quality declined slightly (from 37 to 41% very poor to poor, statewide) during the week ending October 21. Elsewhere on the Plains, dry weather favors fieldwork, including summer crop harvesting and late-season winter wheat planting. Warm, windy weather is developing across the northern High Plains.

In the South, locally heavy rain is slowing late-season fieldwork in the western and central Gulf Coast regions. Cool, dry weather covers the remainder of the South, except for lingering warmth in southern Florida.

In the West, widely scattered showers are spreading northward across the northern Intermountain region. A few showers are also affecting Arizona and New Mexico. Mild, dry weather covers the remainder of the region, although air stagnation is leading to poor air quality across parts of the interior Northwest.

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