Growing Season Nearing

As we head into the springtime months there are many individuals who have an interest in growing conditions. Whether it is simply someone looking to plant a garden in her or his own backyard, or if it is a farmer getting ready to begin planting, or someone interested in trading corn, soy, and a number of related commodities in the markets, everyone is starting to wonder about this year’s growing season and what it will bring. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, it appears that much of south central and southeastern Montana is experiencing at least some form of drought conditions. While some of these areas have noted slight improvement in recent weeks, it appears that northeast Montana and perhaps adjacent areas of North Dakota are so far escaping the impacts from drought, although a few areas are a bit below normal for moisture in the short term. Whether or not that trend continues will have a huge impact in the coming months on the growing season this year. For more information on drought conditions on a national scale, please check out: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/. Clicking on a particular region will bring you to some local details about that particular area.

Taking a look at the figure below, it sure does appear that January was a wet month for us, and this may help stave off drought conditions for this growing season. To our east, it appears western North Dakota has been very dry, and if this continues, we may very well be the only area in the region not experiencing at least minor drought conditions.

Ninth Warmest Global Temperatures on Record for January: January 2013 actually tied January 1995 for the ninth warmest January since 1888 when you compute global averages. This has certainly been an on-going trend with the previous below-average January global temperature way back in January of 1976! More specifically, the average January global temperature taking into consideration both land and ocean surfaces turned out to be 54.57°F. This compares to the 20th century average January temperature of 53.6°F. In addition to warming temperatures, January has brought a wide array of precipitation amounts around the world. In many parts of Europe, the eastern U.S., as well as areas of central and southeastern Asia, above average precipitation occurred. Areas of Austria, Burgenland and Vienna experienced as much as four times their monthly average precipitation for January! On the other hand, it was drier than average across the western U.S., southern South America and southern Australia, and southern and eastern Asia. Moreover, Viwa Island recorded only 2.20 inches of rain which is actually its fourth lowest on record for January! Jerusalem also experienced its biggest snowstorm since 1992 with as much as 8 inches of snow from that! For more details, please check out: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/1.