Winter Weather and Impacts into Spring

Winter Weather and Impacts into Spring
I’m KayDee Gilkey with today’s Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

How did the winter of 2012-2013 play out in parts of the country, and how might that factor into spring time conditions? USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey gives an a winter weather impact report.

We’ll begin in our neck of the woods.

Rippey: “We’ve had some pretty good moisture at times but we certainly could have done a lot better. The northwest certainly has had its share of storms. And we’ve got a pretty good snowpack built up all the way from the Cascades to the Northern Rockies.”

The news isn’t as bright in the southern parts of the West.

Rippey: “It’s really Nevada and into most of the four corners states that will be dealing with low runoff and also low reservoir levels which is a bad combination because you’ve got low water levels going into spring and then you don’t have a lot of snow melting down out of the mountains.”

He shares there are areas that have seen improvement through the winter with a boost in precipitation.

Rippey: “We’ve really picked up a lot of moisture in the Eastern Corn Belt and Mid-South and even into parts of the Southeast. And that has largely eradicated or at least greatly eased drought in all of those areas. As we head into spring, we’ve got a good soft red winter wheat crop from the Mid-South to the Mid-West. We have abundant moisture in preparation for spring planting in much of the Deep South.”

He also mentioned the major East coast snowstorm that dumped in some places 30 to 40 inches of wet, wind-driven snow.

As far as the drought is concerned, 59 percent of the winter wheat area, 69 percent of the cattle production and 59 percent of hay acreage remain under drought conditions.