Dry weather at mid-week features our first push of temperatures to above-normal levels. While we have seen a nice dry window during the past five days or so, temperatures finally just pushed to “warm” levels in the past 24-48 hours.

We finished the month of April below normal, and even though we were able to see a sizable uptick in planting and field work during the past week, it was not thanks to temperatures, at all. In fact, many who put seed in the ground last week were doing so in a cold seed bed.

In any case, we have kicked off a new month, and it looks better. As we led with, we have above-normal temperatures here at midweek with upper 70s to low 80s seen over most of the Eastern Corn Belt.

We have nice southwest flow ahead of our next front, low relative humidity values and evaporation rates near the maximum a quarter of an inch of moisture per day.

We do see this nearly perfect weather taking a pause, though in the short term. Our next rain event kicks off the morning of May 3 with an approaching cold front. Rain totals out of this two-day event will be wide ranging.

Pretty much all areas will get rain, but the heavier, more intense action, based on thunderstorms, will likely be featured farther north. At this point, we are looking for scattered showers through May 3 with a chance of stronger thunderstorms that night, but mostly farther north, coming out of northern Illinois into northern Indiana and southern lower Michigan. General shower action holds through the night to the south. Rains linger through midday and early afternoon May 4, but should be gone well ahead of sunset.

All told, we are breaking the rain totals and coverage down in the following manner. From US 24 north, we are going to have rain from a half-inch to 2 inches with coverage at 100 percent. To get rain totals well over an inch, you will have to see thunderstorms, and the best chance of those now looks to be over the northern third of the region, as previously mentioned.

From US 24 south, we expect rain totals of a quarter-inch to 1 inch. Coverage will be 90 percent. Still, the front for May 3-4 will be excellent for crops that have just gone in the ground, as the most general precipitation total for the two days is around an inch or so. The map shows combined rain totals through midnight May 4 over the region.

We are dry for May 5-7. Temperatures will cool a bit behind the front, but should stay near normal. Then for next May 8, we have a minor disturbance crossing northern Indiana that can bring up to a quarter-inch of rain over about 40 percent of the area, along with southern Michigan and far northwestern Ohio.

This disturbance does not look well organized, at all. If it can organize further, we may have to bump the precipitation totals, but for now, it’s not a major event. Southern Illinois, Indiana and the Ohio Valley see nothing.

Weather will be dry for May 9. A strong system arrives May 10 and lingers through May 12. That event can bring a half-inch to 1.5 inches of rain to 90 percent of the region.

As that circulation moves off to the east, we see the remainder of the 11-16 day period mostly dry, as high pressure parks right over the Great Lakes. Temperatures will be nearly normal to slightly below normal under that high.

Ryan Martin is Chief Meteorologist for Hoosier Ag Today, a licensed Commodity Trader and the Farmer Origination Specialist for Louis Dreyfus Company’s Claypool Indiana Soybean Crush Plant. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World.