WINNIPEG – Most farmers on the Canadian Prairies can look forward to normal to above-normal spring showers and relief from two years of crop-stunting drought, says Canada’s senior climatologist.
Environment Canada’s forecast for the planting season in March, April and May calls for above-normal precipitation for the driest region of Saskatchewan, and normal levels for all but southern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba, David Phillips said.
“At least the signs seem to point to the fact that the farmers will be able to at least have a fighting chance for a decent kind of growing season,” Phillips said.
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“Hey, weather is a crapshoot in all times, but at least guidance may suggest we may be changing that four or five years of dry, dry, dry, dry that we have seen on the Prairies,” he said.
Last summer will be remembered as one of the worst growing seasons in history for many parts of the Prairies.
Wheat production was slashed by 40 percent from the 10-year average to 15.69 million tonnes. Early forecasts for this summer are for a 25-million-tonne wheat crop.
Early forecasts for canola see farmers producing twice last year’s 3.577 million tonnes, which was down 27 percent from the previous year and 43 percent from the 10-year average, according to Statistics Canada figures.
Phillips said computer models also forecast a hotter and wetter summer for the Prairies.
“Of course, timing is everything. If it’s a wet August, that’s just more misery.”
