Indiana has had a stretch of perfect weather the last week, and if it continued like this through all October farmers would be thrilled. But the Indiana Associate State Climatologist, Ken Scheeringa says don’t count on it.
“That’s a tough order,” he told HAT. “If you know Indiana things change quickly and the prospects of having an entire month without rain, that’s next to zero.”
But October does hold some promise for excellent harvest weather. Scheeringa says it should be more normal, meaning there should be relief from intense downpours that seem to be the norm this year.
“In August and early September we were getting almost a couple of times a week these terrific downpours and just keeping our soils very wet. Our temperatures were on the cool side, but that’s kind of gone by the wayside in late September now where we’re having very pleasant weather, a long stretch of days with no rain. That’s sort of looking to continue into early October, maybe not such an extent of dry days in a row. I mean we will have rain, probably even yet this week, but I think it’s going to be closer to what we would call normal.”
Normal falls for Indiana mean high’s in the low 70’s and low’s in the low 50’s and no intense rainfall. Scheeringa says November weather is rather difficult to plan for right now.
“We’re still looking at some things going on in the atmosphere and the ocean that are long range indicators as to what our weather is going to be in the late fall and early winter. So we’re really not having anything conclusive to say right now. It could go anyway because the indicators are not real strong right now as to what’s going to happen in the November-December time frame.”
An update with more specifics in about a month will depend on whether or not the climate office sees more concrete weather indicators emerge.