By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

LEXINGTON, Ky. — According to the saying, if you don’t like the weather here, just wait a week – it will change. No one knows how true that can be better than Kentucky farmers.

Last spring the big news connected to agriculture was the wet weather. As the growing season progressed, the topic was once again rain and cool temperatures. And now that it’s harvest time, the topic of the day once again is: The weather.

The last crop and weather report issued in September by the Kentucky Field Office of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service reported: “Cloudy, wet conditions plagued the Bluegrass State last week interrupting harvest activity and making farmsteads a muddy mess. Frequent showers and isolated thunderstorms were a daily concern. Many locations in central and eastern Kentucky received rainfall every day during the period and 3 to 5 inch rainfall totals were common.”

That was compiled by University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Meteorologist Tom Priddy, who has been in the weather business for 32 years and has seen many changes, particularly in the technology used to predict the weather. “Farmers are almost overloaded with the amount of information available to them,” he said. “Thirty years ago we were trying to be able to get weather information in a timely manner to Kentucky farmers. Now, we have cell phones with Web access and Internet pages that are specific to agricultural forecast that go right to the farmers’ homes.”

Priddy pointed out however, that no matter the technology, we are still at the mercy of Mother Nature.

 “As much as we think we can control (the weather), we keep getting slapped in the face with it,” he said. “There is a certain amount of uncertainty with weather that continues to surprise us.
“The great thing about farmers here and across the country is they tend to take what they get and make the best out of it. I tell farmers what we have to learn is how to manage all of this weather information.”

Priddy said because of the relationship his office and others like it across the country have had with the National Weather Service (NWS), they can now provide a point forecast to any farm in the country. A point forecast is described by the NWS as a way, thanks to computer technology, to pinpoint a forecast value every three miles.

The key is to teach farmers how to use all of this information available. It is a management nightmare, he said. While getting a handle on all of this information may create a technology headache for farmers, the weather they have faced this year and the last two years has been a nightmare of a different sort.

In 2007 fruit growers faced devastation as an Easter freeze killed much of the state’s produce for the year. That was followed by summer drought that affected nearly everything else.

Last year the drought conditions continued, prompting Gov. Steve Beshear to ask for federal assistance because of dry conditions.
This year planting was hindered by wet conditions for most major crops. Now, heading into a traditionally dry period, rain has dampened fields and caused many producers to worry about mold developing on the tobacco that has gone from the field to the barn.
“We had a little window for dry conditions and things really advanced, but then it seemed like the clouds broke, dumping precipitation by the buckets,” said Priddy. “It’s pretty unusual because chronologically, this is the driest time of the year, which fits the harvest just great – but not this year.”

Priddy said conditions should switch back though according to occurrences in the equatorial Pacific known as El Niño a weather phenomenon that occurs in the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean and affects weather patterns all over the world. In this area that could mean a drier and milder winter.

“There is not much of an El Niño signature here in the fall or spring so it doesn’t really mess with our frost dates. But, later in the fall and early in the winter, it can cause a totally different weather scenario than what we normally have in Kentucky,” he said. “And that is what the outlooks are calling for.”

That in mind, Priddy warned bad winter weather could still happen but the overall trend calls for a winter that is milder than usual and drier than usual.

Dry weather now would be a help for farmers as they continue their harvest activities, but they may still have to wait a couple of weeks for that to occur.

“The six- to 10- and 8- to 14-day outlooks are continuing to call for above normal precipitation for locations in and near Kentucky,” he said. “Right now the indication for temperatures is that we will keep this below normal regime in all of the eastern U.S. at least until Oct. 15. That’s not a real good weather pattern for, say, drying tobacco.”

Priddy also said regardless of the weather, state farmers have proven to be resilient and the weather they have here works to their advantage. “We have a vibrant climate in Kentucky which we consider a resource for agriculture, but it can still totally fool us,” he said.

Published on Oct. 7, 2009