Ryan Martin’s Indiana Ag Forecast for July 13, 2018

Sunny, dry and hot today and tomorrow. Rising temps will combine with rising humidity to produce some significant heat indices. However, actual air temps today will be from 87-91, and we should see most of the state only in the lower 90s tomorrow…not as hot as recent hot pushes.

Sunday scattered showers will be developing, but the better coverage rains kick off late afternoon and evening before running through the overnight and Monday. Rain for the daytime hours Sunday will be limited in scope to about 30% of the state and will be highly hit and miss. Then the coverage really fills in through Monday. All rain action is done by dawn on Tuesday, except for far southeast Indiana. We are keeping rain totals at our current .1”-.7” range and expect 90% coverage for the entire period. Some models are promoting better thunderstorm development, and while we can see this, it still is not a big enough threat to warrant a change to our forecast. We hope that they do develop, though, because thunderstorms would bump our rain totals to over a quarter inch on the bottom end and over an inch to perhaps 1.25” on the top end – and those are the kinds of rain totals that we can really use right now. However, we just don’t think the moisture and energy combination is there for thunderstorms right now. Let’s see if that can change by the time we are talking to you again on Monday? The map below shows rain totals through Monday night. Southern Indiana may be a little overdone.

We are dry Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday. Thursday has been a thorn in our side all week in this forecast! It is no different this morning. Models are still in significant disagreement, but who has what has changed dramatically. The GFS model has now latched onto significant rain and thunderstorms with a strong low for next Thursday. Meanwhile, the Euro has been slowly but steadily backing off of its rain totals and now is under half an inch in most areas. Then the Canadian still says 100% “nope” to all of it and is completely dry. We are going to open the door to a little moisture in our forecast for Thursday, just do to instability. We think that the true driver of what happens Thursday will be the moisture we see early in the week, and what it can do to change our very dry atmospheric column to one that can support more moisture. But, for now, we will add up to .4” with no more than 40% coverage for next week on Thursday. We will revisit this again Monday morning.

Dry Friday, Saturday and next Sunday.

A strong front arrives late on Monday the 23rd and will move across the state through the 24th. This front has .5”-1” rain potential, with coverage at 75%. The rest of the extended period is dry, but we may have to keep an eye out for some rain coming in from the southwest around the 28th. Confidence is low, and that system may easily miss to the south, or even fall apart.