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Hope for soil moisture recharge going into winter

Farmers in areas of drought are hoping for some well-timed moisture this fall.

Iowa state climatologist Justin Glisan says soils in his state and several others need a recharge.

“That’s at the top of my list once we get harvested, recharge soil profiles as much as possible. That’s important (because) the more moisture we have in those profiles, the less deep those soils will freeze, and the slower they’ll freeze as well as we get into wintertime.”

He tells Brownfield a strengthening El Nino weather pattern means winter conditions should be warmer than normal.

“And that’s a good signal to see again in terms of that frost depth in the soil profiles. The shallower that frost depth, the faster the soils will thaw in spring (resulting in) better infiltration of snowpack melt (and) any rain that we get even during warm periods through winter.”

Glisan says climatological forecasts are pointing to equal chances of above, below, or near average temperatures and precipitation for October and November.