Ag Weather Impacts

A weak ridge of high pressure will produce dry weather across the Columbia Basin the next few days. For this time of year that means fog will also be a concern. The next chance for precipitation will arrive Friday night and continue through the weekend as a pacific front moves through the area. Although most farms will get at least some rain, it appears amounts will be mainly a quarter inch or less. After this weekend’s light precipitation, it’s back to a high pressure ridge and dry conditions for next Monday and Tuesday before conditions turn unsettled again for the mid to latter part of next week. Soils are frozen in the top couple inches in much of the Columbia Basin, but should thaw after midweek and remain above freezing this weekend and into the middle of next week. So how did the numbers for November tally up? Well it was a dry November with most farms getting less than 25 percent of the normal precipitation. Selah at just .01 and Prosser with .09 were the driest. Although Walla Walla got .57 inch that was still only 20 percent of the Normal amount for November. It was rather cool November averaging 2 to 4 degrees below normal, except close to normal in the north at Ellensburg, Yakima, Moses Lake and Ephrata. Over the weekend, NOAA’s Climate Prediction center updated the December outlook and is calling for temperatures to average above normal and precipitation to total near to slightly above normal