Minnesota’s November Weather Continues 2021’s Trend: Warm & Dry

Tom Hoverstad Scientist at the Southern Research and Outreach Center at Waseca (SROC) said the drier and warmer than normal pattern continued in November and for the growing season rainfall was 14 inches below normal. However, it was nice that the pattern continued for November because the dry fall made harvest, fall tillage, and fertilizer applications very low stress. November 2020 was miserable as it was cold and we received 8 inches of snow. Maybe Mother Nature felt guilty about last year and paid us back with a really nice fall this year?

Personally, I would have liked to see a little more rain after fieldwork was done to recharge the dry soil before it freezes? Tom was guessing the heavy black soils in Southern Minnesota were around 50 percent of water holding capacity. Remember, we can hold 11 inches of moisture in the 5-foot soil profile. I thought it would have been nice to have a little more in reserve in case it is really dry next spring and early summer. But, Tom looked at it another way.

Tom added it is nice to have room in the soil profile to soak up 4 or 5 inches of rain in the spring. Our big concern here in Southern Minnesota is having the soil warm up and dry out so we can plant the crop in a timely fashion. Too wet delays planting many more years than we are concerned about the soil being too dry. Click on the link and listen to Tom discuss our November 2021 weather!