News
Michigan is the driest in at least 20 years
An ag meteorologist says Michigan’s growing degree days still are running ahead of normal but recent cool weather has slowed down the warmup.
“We’re still ahead but not as much as we were two or three weeks ago.”
State climatologist for Michigan Jeff Andresen (an-dree-sen) says April was again drier than normal with moisture levels the most widespread in the lower half of the Lower Peninsula.
“We’ve got deficits here on the order of two to maybe as much as four inches of plant available water,” he says.
Conditions are the driest in the last 20 years at least in the southern portion of the state which Andresen says is a concern if the trend continues throughout the growing season.
The near-term forecast in trending toward cooler and drier which could lend itself to frost and freeze events near the low 30s overnight in the coming days.
Andresen made his comments during this week’s MSU Extension Field Crops Virtual Breakfast.
