The next month will be vital for prairie farmers’ hopes for a better crop next spring.
Fall is the time that rain can make up some of the crippling moisture deficit that stunted much of the prairie crop this summer.
“We’ve got a good month and a half where we can have rain,” said Canadian Wheat Board analyst Guy Ash.
“Right now the coffee cup is half full. We need to fill it.”
Ash said rain is needed now to rejuvenate the soil. A heavy snowpack is much less likely to do the job because there is comparatively little water in snow. Also, melting snow often runs off frozen soils and simply drains away from even parched soils.
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Evaporation also limits the amount of good that snow cover can do.
The prairie soil moisture situation is grim.
Southern and central Alberta and Saskatchewan are extremely dry and will need a lot of rain to recharge.
Environment Canada is predicting the dry weather will continue through the fall. High pressure systems are still hanging over the Pacific northwest, and that is pushing wet air well north or south of the Canadian Prairies.
That has happened for most of the summer.
Southwest winds hit incoming damp air in the mountains, which forces them up, causing the precipitation to fall in the mountains, not on the Prairies where it is needed, said Environment Canada analyst Jay Anderson.
There are some signs of an El Nino weather influence building, but Anderson said it probably won’t have too much impact. El Ninos tend to bring warm and dry conditions, but this year’s version appears to be rather weak.
“Weak ones tend to not have a large impact on the Prairies,” said Anderson.
Ash said market analysts are watching weather conditions in other countries.
Soil moisture levels are good for most United States grain growing areas, including the key winter wheat area. Last year conditions for American growers were bad.
Then it was too dry in the fall, then too wet.
Autumn conditions in the European Union and in China will also be carefully watched.
But Ash cautioned that too much could be read into fall soil moisture conditions.
“Our fall weather is probably not as important as our spring weather,” said Ash.
“It doesn’t determine acres.”
