By LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Poor pasture conditions and high hay prices – both due to the Indiana drought – have caused some Hoosier farmers to sell off part of their cattle herds. But recent rains have at least provided temporary relief from the dry weather.

“If you drive around, you can tell that the last rain really improved the crops,” said Greg Matli, deputy director of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) in Indiana. “But we don’t see an immediate response in pastures. They continued to deteriorate, but next week’s (crop and weather) report should show a whole different picture.”

The NASS crop and weather report dated June 24 shows that 54 percent of Indiana farmers rated their pasture condition poor or very poor, and 33 percent rated it fair. Topsoil moisture received a boost from the rain that fell over the weekend of June 23-24, but 66 percent of farmers still reported that their fields are short or very short, compared with 86 percent the week before.

“The areas along the Illinois state line are doing the best right now. The worst areas are south of Fort Wayne and along the Ohio line,” said Ken Scheeringa, associate state climatologist at Purdue University.

Originally, the southern part of the state was hardest hit by the drought, while the northern part had more moisture. This now appears to have shifted to a west-east pattern, with the east suffering the most. Whereas the west-central and southwest parts of Indiana got 1-3 inches of rain over the weekend of June 23-24, the rest of the state received less than 1 inch, and the statewide precipitation deficit ranged from 1-8 inches for the period May 1–June 25.

That rain helped push western Indiana out of its moderate drought status; and as of the June 28 U.S. Drought Monitor update, 14 percent of the state is not considered dry at all. However, 62 percent of Indiana – an area running from north to south through the interior of the state – is rated abnormally dry. The southeast retains its moderate drought status, and the condition of a 2-percent sliver along the Kentucky state line even worsened to severe drought.

According to Scheeringa, a tropical air mass that forms over the Atlantic Ocean – a “Bermuda high” – is to blame not only for the lack of rain in Indiana, but also the extreme drought conditions in the Southeast states.

“This year (the Bermuda high) has covered a lot of area and expanded westward, and that’s what’s turned the rain off,” he said. “The Indiana drought is not just in Indiana, it’s an extension of the drought area that covers Georgia and Alabama.”

Because of the Bermuda high, storms coming in from the west have the best chance of producing rainfall.

Scheeringa expects July to start out dry as well, but below-normal temperatures could alleviate some of the stress on the crops.

“Even if it does turn dry again, it will be cooler and we won’t lose as much moisture, since it won’t evaporate as quickly,” he said.

For the long term, predictions are harder to make. If a La Nina pattern develops later in the summer, history suggests that the intensity of the drought will increase. An active hurricane season, on the other hand, could bring a lot of moisture if the storm systems travel across Indiana.

“We don’t have any strong signals that tell us one thing or another, so right now there’s a lot of guesswork,” Scheeringa said. “A drought may seem like something that changes slowly, but not in Indiana. The situation is changing rapidly and we’re trying to stay on top of it.”