By Alice McFarlane

Moisture conditions expected to improve on the prairies after seeding

Feb 17, 2022 | 10:18 AM

MELFORT, Sask. – Timing is everything when it comes to farming.

There was a great deal of stress after last year’s drought on the prairies but an agricultural meteorologist said the spring will start off relatively dry but there are signs of improvements from June on.

Drew Lerner with World Weather Inc. said patience will be the key for growers in areas of western Canada that have poor soil moisture and little to no winter snow cover.

Lerner uses the 18-year upper air wind flow cycle and surface water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean in his long-term weather projections.

The scientific name is Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). Lerner said the negative phase of PDO will help to support storminess in the US Pacific Northwest and into the prairies, if everything goes just right.

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“Now, the PDO has to work with other weather patterns, so we want to focus on that. This is indeed going to be the case for us this year, we’ve got to keep the negative phase of PDO in place, the weaker that PDO gets over time, the more this might not materialize, and we could actually see our dry bias prevail longer,” Lerner said.

The PDO is not only negative but significantly negative. Lerner said this past December the value was the same as it was in the 1950s and early 1960s.

“That is extremely important because what was happening in the 50s, in particular, was that we are seeing a lot of rain in Canada’s prairies and drought in the U.S. We are possibly heading down the same road,” he said. “The 18-year cycle is also favourable, but one variable is how long La Nina continues.”

There has been above average snowfall in the northern grainbelt but below normal in west central, south west and some south central regions. Lerner said there is quite a bit of moisture in the snow across the northern fringes of Saskatchewan and in the same corridor north of Regina.

“In that particular area with a lot of snow on the ground there is a lot of potential for some runoff of sorts. It will at least help to improve some of the dugouts that had dried up and became non-functional over the past couple of years. We’ll have at least a little bit of moisture,” Lerner said.

With it being so dry for so long even when the runoff occurs, and the ground opens up there will be a significant amount of absorption in the soil. Some of that runoff may not be all that great.

Lerner said the dry conditions will be a chronic concern in the early spring season with serious moisture deficits in the soil.

“We’re going to have that dryness in parts of southern and east central parts of Alberta and west central through central Saskatchewan into the south west part of that province,” Lerner said. “We’re going to see a couple of snow events for sure but the ground is frozen hard, and having snow on the ground in the month of March isn’t going to change the bottom line, we have to thaw the ground, and then bring precipitation in.”

In April, Lerner predicts a ridge of high pressure with less precipitation with warmer temperatures which will thaw the soil and set the stage to move moisture into the ground. More precipitation will come at the start of seeding.

Lerner said there will be a break in the pattern in May if the 18-year cycle remains in place. If the cycles continue there won’t be persistent dry weather.

“A good mix of weather is being suggested in 18-year cycle data so that again reinforces the thought that we’re going to see alternating periods of rain and sunshine during the summer season based on 18-year cycle data only,” Lerner said.

The current weather patterns are encouraging for the prairies. Lerner said it will be stressful in the first weeks of planting especially in central, south west or west central parts of Saskatchewan.

“Patience will be a virtue this year,” he said.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW