Ryan Martin’s Indiana Ag Forecast for May 23, 2018

Dry weather dominates the rest of the week. We are putting sunshine in for today through Saturday. Clouds will start to develop in parts of the state Saturday afternoon as moisture starts to push up from the south. We will keep an eye out Saturday evening for a few showers near the river, but in general, most of our precipitation that happens will move through on Sunday. However, overall moisture for the holiday weekend looks to be less. The best chance of rain in Indiana will be Sunday evening up through midnight, but we are also going to have to keep an eye out for scattered pop up showers through the day Sunday. That action will be largely hit and miss with coverage no more than 20% of the state through the day. Sunday night coverage will be closer to 80% of the state. We expect rain totals for the entirety of Sunday to be from a few hundredths to no more than half an inch, and a tenth or two will be the most frequent measurement. Moisture is off to the east for Memorial Day on Monday, and we should see a mostly dry day there as well. So overall, this forecast looks good for drying, and for enjoyment of the weekend. The map above shows rain totals through the holiday weekend.

Next week we are keeping dry weather in for the Tuesday-Thursday time frame. Our thoughts from yesterday regarding any tropical system look to be verifying, as most models are keeping the storm, but are just having it meander around the gulf coast rather than shooting northward. So, we have no reason to bring moisture in at this time. WE still are looking to bring our next system forward to the 1st, lasting into early the 3rd, Rain totals from the first early wave are minor at .25”-.5” over 60% of the state, but we are seeing signs of a second push that could bring up to 1 inch for the overnight of the 2nd into early the 3rd. That wave would push rain totals for the event to 100% of Indiana. That will be the piece to really watch.

For the rest of the 11-16 day window we see a dry start to the week of the 4th, but still have a minor front working in around midweek that week, for the 6th. The front can bring up to half an inch of moisture with 70% coverage. Temps remain mostly normal to slightly above normal for the period.