Rain for Southern Wisconsin, but Drought Continues

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Southern Wisconsin is getting some much needed rain over the next few days. This is good news for corn farmers, but experts say it won’t be enough to end the drought.

This week could bring the most rain seen in quite a while for some areas in southern Wisconsin. Ed Townsend is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan. He expects a mix of rain showers and thunderstorms. But, Townsend says, it won’t be enough for southern Wisconsin to climb out of the drought. “Most likely we’ll be in a drought at least one, two, three months probably longer. Even if we only receive our normal precipitation that’s not going to pull us out. We need have some situations where we have a surplus of rain.”

Due to the drought, agriculture officials say some corn fields are just beyond saving, but UW Extension Agricultural Climatologist Bill Bland says this week’s rain may help salvage some of the corn fields that are still alive, where the plants have successfully pollinated, “I suppose there is still a potential, where we got, say, four inches over the next two weeks. There might be a chance of some decent yields. Or at least corn that’s good enough to be made into corn silage.”

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The latest report from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service says as of last weekend, just over 30 percent of the Wisconsin corn crop was considered in excellent or good condition. Sixty five percent was in fair to very poor condition.