Weather
Weather remains cool, damp across the Midwestern Corn Belt
Across the Corn Belt, cool, cloudy, showery weather has halted nearly all fieldwork east of the Mississippi River, where Friday’s high temperatures will remain mostly below 70°F. Meanwhile, dry weather has returned across the western Corn Belt, although low cloudiness lingers early Friday in many areas. Later Friday, high temperatures should reach 80°F or higher throughout Nebraska and South Dakota.
On the Plains, dry weather prevails between storms. Cool conditions linger across the east-central and southeastern Plains, but warmth covers the remainder of the region. Friday’s high temperatures could reach 90°F as far north as South Dakota. In the Red River Valley of the North, producers are frantically attempting to seed a variety of crops, following severe delays that have resulted in the slowest planting pace of the 21st century for U.S. sugarbeets and spring wheat.
In the South, potentially severe morning thunderstorms are sweeping toward the Atlantic Seaboard, especially in parts of Virginia and the Carolinas. In addition, a threat of flooding exists Friday in the Atlantic Coast States. Meanwhile, cool, cloudy weather lingers in parts of the Tennessee Valley. Elsewhere, warm, dry weather from the western Gulf Coast region to the Mississippi Delta favors late-season planting efforts and a rapid pace of crop development.
In the West, scattered showers extend inland from the northern Pacific Coast to the northern Rockies. The remainder of the region is experiencing warm, dry weather, with an elevated wildfire threat continuing in much of the drought-stricken Southwest, amid dry, breezy conditions. In New Mexico, the state’s largest modern wildfire on record—the 312,000-acre Calf Canyon / Hermits Peak Fire—has not recently grown much, but the 185,000-acre Black Fire continues to expand.
