RAIN PLAYS HAVOC WITH FARM WORK

While the wet weather in April and the first half of May spoiled many weekend outdoor activities, it's having a much more serious impact on area farmers.

Cape Girardeau County Extension agronomist Gerald Bryan said the unusually warm and humid weather is causing serious damage to this year's wheat crop and delaying planting of corn and soybeans because of wet fields.

Last month, nearly 6 inches (5.87) of rain fell at the Cape Girardeau airport. But even greater amounts fell on many farm fields in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois.

Since May 1, the airport has measured 2.89 inches of rain. But that doesn't include the 1.6 to 1.8 inches of rain that poured down in less than two hours Monday afternoon in Cape Girardeau, and similar deluges that fell in other scattered areas of the bi-state area Monday afternoon and evening.

Bryan said that where the rainfall has been moderate, the wheat, corn and beans are looking good. But in other areas, where fields were wet or had standing water, the corn and beans had to be replanted.

Bryan said a hailstorm last month cut a two-mile-wide swath of damage across "Old Field," south of Ste. Genevieve, and on nearby Kaskaskia Island. "All of that will have to be replanted as soon as the ground is dry," he said.

Bryan said the spotty showers and thunderstorms this month have kept many farmers out of their fields. "Just about any ground that has not been planted this spring is being held up due to wet weather, or high water along the river bottoms," he said.

Bryan estimated that 35-45 percent of this year's corn crop and about 25 percent of the soybeans have been planted in the bi-state area. "We've still got time to get the beans in, but time is running out for corn," Bryan said.

He said the wet weather has also delayed second cuttings of hay, and reduced the quality of grasses now growing in the fields.

But Bryan said it is this year's wheat crop that is taking the real beating from Mother Nature. "I would say the majority of the winter wheat in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois is being impacted by the high humidity and excess moisture, and it's getting worse everyday," he said. "We're getting a tremendous infestation ... that is moving rapidly across wheat fields." Bryan said the damage is caused by warm, very humid days, and humid nights.

"What we need right now is some nice, dry weather, with lots of sunshine," Bryan said.

Forecaster Dave Jokerst, with the National Weather Service office in St. Charles County, said the current pattern of spotty showers or thunderstorms should continue through the end of the week.

Jokerst said a stationary, deep low-pressure trough in the upper atmosphere over the Rocky Mountains has diverted the west-to-east flow of the jet stream to a northward direction over the Great Plains. He said that's holding back the movement of frontal systems that would push the warm, muggy air out of the area and replace it with cooler, drier air.

"We've gotten into a persistent weather pattern and it just won't let up. It has gone on longer than normal," said Jokerst. "We've got a very stagnant situation in the upper atmosphere over Missouri and Illinois with the lazy, hazy days that you would normally expect in August. At least, it's too moist to really heat up, because as soon as it gets into the 80s, up comes the cloud cover."

Jokerst said the weather conditions here the past couple of weeks resemble that of Alabama and Georgia during the summer months.

"I just don't see any immediate end to the current weather pattern," he said. "We just can't get a cool front to penetrate this far east and south to cool us off. And now we're getting into the time of the year when it's going to start heating up for the summer."