The weather roller coaster has brought a whirlwind of conditions to the Northern Plains, and farmers are sharing their experiences on social media.
Paul Subart, in North Dakota, posted pictures on Twitter and wrote, “Hard freeze, baking heat, hail, and flooding. All in a week and a half...”
On Tuesday, torrential rain flooded crops in some of the drought-stricken areas. He says that they got four inches of rain in an hour in Kidder County. One man joked, “Locusts show up in two weeks!” Paul replied, “They’re going to be hungry! Not much left to take.”
In the southwestern U.S., folks hope the monsoon season, which cranks up in July, will bring some relief to its drought, but across that region of the country, USDA says the drought is now crippling.
It’s been going on for two years.
USDA meteorologist paints a long-term picture which shows no relief this summer: “California on the other hand, with its Mediterranean climate, does not expect any appreciable rainfall until we get into the winter, wet season, that would take us into at least October or November.”
Until then, Brad Rippey says that we can expect a difficult water supply and wildfire season in much of the west, which is already going full blast.
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