After a dry start to the week, we will get a little more precipitation action in to the Eastern Corn Belt. Warm air is surging northward over the region at midweek, ahead of a cold front that brings precipitation starting the night of May 9.

Temperatures at midweek are the warmest we will be for the rest of the week.

Clouds build the afternoon of May 9 and precipitation breaks out that night. Rain and thunderstorms will be at their zenith from just ahead of midnight through sunrise on May 10. Rain totals look to be from quarter-inch to 1 inch with coverage at 80 percent of the region.

By the afternoon, rain is done in most of the Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, but may linger through sunset or closer to midnight in Ohio and Kentucky. May 11-12 will be dry from US 24 south. However, the northern third of the Eastern Corn Belt will see lingering cloud cover through at least May 11 and perhaps May 12.

We think precipitation stays mostly up over Michigan, but the long and short of it is that we can’t completely get rid of a chance of showers those days up north, and drying will be limited. May 11, in particular, we can see a few hundredths to quarter-inch of moisture over about 60 percent of the region north of I-70.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms are in for May 13, and linger though midday on May 14. We can see rain from a half-inch to 1 1/2 inches with strong to severe thunderstorm potential. The rain out of this event will have 100 percent coverage.

The strong thunderstorms look to be most active in central and southern Indiana, and back into east central Illinois from midnight May 13 through morning. All action is done by the afternoon.

Dry weather is back for May 15-16. Our next front likely develops around May 20, bringing rain of a half-inch to 1 1/2 inches over 90 percent of Indiana. A reinforcing wave of energy brings additional rain of up to 2 inches for late May 21 through May 22. The map shows potential 10-day rainfall over the region.

We did an in-depth analysis of the far extended pattern for giggles last week. After the system on May 21-22, we look to be dry through May 29. Minor action can pop up on May 30, before two more dry days around May 31 and June 1. Heavy rain is possible around June 2-4, but then we see another dry window from June 5-13.

Now, this far out, all of this can change before we get anywhere close to the period, but what we are saying is this: We expect systems to come through with enough regularity during the next 10 days that it may be a little tough to get field work going, especially if we get heavy rain without next systems. We do see a move back to longer dry periods for the last third of May and early June.

Temperatures this week will be normal to above normal, with the warmest air coming in ahead of the front on May 9. This weekend though will feature a good strong south flow funneling warm air into the May 13 rain.

Basically we see no cold air outbreaks in the next two weeks.

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.