Weathermania!

Is this 2020 corn? :confused2:

At least where I live in the east metro, today's forecast has been a dud. Barely enough rain here to make the ground wet.

I've lived in my house for 12 years, and my lawn has never looked worse. I have large patches of grass that got completely scorched from the long stretch of hot dry days. I have irrigation, and even that hasn't helped.

It's about time to start watering the foundation of the house. Damn clay soil.

Have you increased the time each zone waters? My grass is green but some of my drier zones run for 45 minutes, every other day. And I have supplemented the driest spots with hose sprinklers in the worst areas This is about 50-75% more water than I normally use in June.

Water bill won't be fun to pay.

Yes. Corn I have in the bins that I have contracted at the local elevator for July delivery. About half of the crop I harvest in the fall I store and sell the next year depending on my needs for cash to pay bills.

Even 30 minutes every other day in a large part of my yard was leading to heat stress during the prolonged heat wave and I had to jack up the time.

I’m just starting to get a feel for what does and doesn’t work with the new system.

I've tried watering at night which can help greatly, but it leads to mold issues which make my grass appear brownish. The blades get brown stripes on them. My Kentucky blue grass just doesn't like it.

My next door neighbor waters in the evening all the time. He has a different grass variety and if has no issues. He also mows at a ridiculously high setting too (maybe 4+ inches).

I have tried everything... even giving the dry areas extra water with a hose and sprinkler. There are 2 patches in my back yard (both about 15' x 10') that are completely dead, and no amount of watering is bringing it back. I'm guessing I'll have to dig those spots up and replace with sod in the fall.

It has to be bad soil under the grass. My house was built in 1968, and the lawn was neglected for years before I bought it. I've worked hard to improve it in the 12 years I've been there (put in a sprinkler system, fertilize 4 times a year, etc...), but I can only do so much because the foundation for a nice lawn was never there. If money weren't an issue, I'd love to bulldoze my whole yard, put down about 4" of nice black dirt, and start over again.

I live in Eagan and that's basically the case here. It rained reasonably hard for 25-35 minutes around 8am. Basically intermittent sprinkles since, and every time I open the weather app the percentage of chance of rain goes down.

Rained before I woke up this morning, at some point, then some sprinkles here and there (Hopkins area). Just kind of a blah day overall.

It’s been raining steadily in Burnsville/Eagan area for a bit. But I did spend four hours cleaning/waxing my car Sunday so of course it has rained on me every time I’ve driven it since then.

I was surprised when I got in the car a little bit ago and the Twins game was on. Must be a small cell.

Nice rain here last night. I'm up to 1.1" since Memorial Day!

We had 2 tenths. Tomorrow will be interesting. 2 websites "predict" 8 tenths for us, the NWS says between 1/4 and 1/2. The local talking heads say 2+ inches... I will go with the NWS. It is a crapshoot.

Everything I see shows 0% chance of rain for tomorrow

The system is "supposed" to hit SW Mn where I live. Norm lives north and east of me by an hour and a half or so.

Hope that both you guys get the rain you need & at the right time between now and harvest.

DTN says .65 Thursday down your way +.35 Friday.

My cousin in Worthington has had several nice rains lately.

Massive X-class solar flare erupted on the sun

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/07/world/solar-flare-cycle-25-scn/index.html

[media] https://twitter.com/NWSSiouxFalls/status/1413161788531638273/photo/1 [/media]

Well, the results are in from Thursday... No rain during the day, and 1 website said we had a 92% chance of rain overnight and I went to bed optimistic and I woke up to ..... Zip, nada, nothing.

It all went further south.

Just curious, do you use regular apps or websites (TWC, Weather Underground, etc.) or are there specialized apps or websites that allow farmers to get forecasts targeted for your location? I have used GPLs resident meteorologist (my niece the misguided uw alum) for forecasts when we've had big groups at our lake cabin and she has been fairly accurate & wondering if something like that is available. I presume irrigation is expensive as hell plus not easy to deploy so accurate forecasting is like gold.

BTW, for anyone interested I highly recommend "Clarkson's Farm" on Amazon Prime. Yes it's often silly and irreverent like Grand Tour/Top Gear but the underlying theme of the show is the impact weather has on farming. You may recall last year in the UK they went from rains that led to massive flooding to a horrible drought and the series was filmed during this period. It offers tremendous insight as well as a lot of chuckles. As a product of a suburban upbringing and as a current urban dweller it was an eye-opener for me. Hail the farmer....wait......hail....horrible word choice.....Three cheers for our farmers!!

I just use NWS and DTN (neither of which have been worth looking at this year). There are companies offering custom forecasts for a fee, but I can't imagine that they would be any more accurate.

There are some subscription based sites that are more geared towards farmers, but I have never used those sites. I have about 5 weather websites that I monitor (along with the TV forecasters) and try to find a consensus among those. For me, wind speed and direction is an important factor when I need to spray, so that is an important items I look for. . Part of my issue is, that I live near the Buffalo Ridge, (Coteau des Prairies) and the weather here is really affected by it and most weather sites just use a blanket approach of the weather here, and the weather can be so different on either side of the Ridge (which I farm on both sides). I realize that predicting the weather is not easy, and normally don't get too bent out of shape when they are wrong. It is just funny when they say it will rain (75% or higher), and we don't get a drop.

As far as irrigation, there are not a whole lot of them in my area. I am not an expert on this, but some of the irrigation systems just draw the water from the aquifers under their land, so they don't have to pay for it. I recall as a kid when someone a few miles away put one in, the locals were concerned that it would use up all the water and not allow enough water for the local farmers wells. Now, most of the people who live in the country around here have "rural water". It is just like in the city, with a pipeline delivering water to our farm. Plus, I would not drink any well water these days with all of the chemicals that seep into the soils now. I cringe at thinking that is what I grew up on drinking as a kid, but the chemical uses back then was minimal.

All of a sudden NWS and DTN are now both predicting rain here tonight. 70% chance--3/4 inch. I'll believe it when I see it.

It was a dry heat though...

[media] https://twitter.com/edgarrmcgregor/status/1413664238338416641 [/media]

In Plymouth area, it's looked like rain at times, SMELLED like rain at times, but no rain today (so far).

I went to bed last night with an 80% chance of 1 inch. Got skunked again. :censored:

Well, I actually got 9/10ths today. That will settle the dust for a day. It soaked right in. Just need it to keep coming.

Good for you!. I'm still stuck on 1.1" since Memorial Day. :censored:

The forecast for me on Weather Underground is a little odd for tomorrow. Just a 57%chance of rain with forecasted rain total of 1.5”.

That is a lot of rain predicted considering there is a 43% chance it doesn’t rain at all.

KSTP this am said Twin Cities could get 3 inches of rain tomorrow ☔️

I'll take the under.

We've got 80% chance of 1 inch. Same as last Saturday when we got 0.

NWS just raised our forecast to 1 to 2 inches. They're crazy.

They had us for 1 1/4 for today. We have had .40 so far and the "heavy" rain has passed. So, I'm guessing we will end up with around a half inch.

Was hoping it'd downpour so much that softball would get rained out tonight. Seems less likely every time I look at the radar.

Seems like the heavy stuff went south. still hoping for decent rain today.

Forecast went from 2" to 0.75 in a couple of hours.... So annoying.

Looking at the severe weather forecast from the Storm Prediction Center, what it sounds like they're expecting is that after this current round passes through, later this afternoon into evening, along a line north of where that passed earlier will have re-development of possible thunderstorms.

Downpour in Blaine. Such a welcome sight.

Not sure what's going to happen the rest of the day, but a bit over 1 inch for me so far. (Looks like about 1 1/4, but I don't feel like getting soaked to do the proper measurement.)

Out here in the middle of nowhere we ended up with 1/2 inch. Sun is now coming out. The extended forecast for us shows nothing more in the next 10 days.

So, for most areas, it was temporary - but very welcome relief - at best.

Our forecast from NWS was 80% chance of 1 to 2 inches. From DTN it was 80% chance of 1.5 inches. With a consensus like that you would expect it to be fairly accurate. We got .2 :censored:

That brings me to 1.3" since June 1. Long term average is 6.5".

Up to around 2.1 inches in Brooklyn Park just south of 610/252... after it passed, I went out and dumped around 2 inches from the gauge. Still need to go back in the morning to get the official reading for the day.

Pretty slow rain in the Plymouth area for most of the day, minus a short burst (20 minutes?) of torrential rain. I am relating to the sound of it on the roof of my warehouse building.

It wasn’t slow in my part of Plymouth. We had multiple waves of very heavy rain. Judging by the amount of water my dog was kicking up in the yard outside I’m guessing we got 1.5 inches at least.

Ditto in Wayzata. Had a river running through the parking lot in the shadow of the Carlson Towers.

I work right off the corner of 494/Carlson Parkway.

1.5 inches in Hudson. 10 day forecast has no more rain.