Ag Weather Impacts

Ag Weather Impacts

After a brief respite, it's back to the hot weather across the Columbia Basin. Although it won't be quite as extreme as last week, Fair goers in Heppner and Moses Lake, should be prepared for daytime temperatures about 8 to 10 degrees above normal. This will also impact livestock with moderate to occasional severe heat stress, especially tomorrow and Thursday. Now, we are watching the potential for some tropical moisture moving north from California into Oregon and southeast Washington after Wednesday. The isolated thunderstorms which develop from this moisture are not expected to produce much moisture, but the main impact will be the lightning which could easily start new fires in the dry vegetation. It looks like the thunderstorm potential will be mainly southeast of a line from Condon Oregon to Dayton Washington. Fortunately, most of the wheat in this area has been combined, but there's still the wheat stubble and the dry pastures and brush. Otherwise, field and orchard work should be able to proceed. Crop water use for alfalfa and silking corn will continue higher than normal at around an inch and 3/4 . Lawns and melons will need around an inch and a quarter. Alfalfa balers can plan for humidity to drop to around 20 percent during the afternoon and rise above 60 percent from around 2 am to 8 am. Look for a little higher humidity Thursday and Friday and then drier conditions again Saturday into the middle of next week. If you need to spray, you can plan on generally light winds.
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