Hot, Wet Weather Cuts Into W.Va. Hay Harvest

Jul 30, 2013

Over the past month, the region's weather conditions have oscillated between hot and wet, and just plain hot.

That erratic weather has taken a toll on the productivity of the region's hay farmers this summer.

Will Legg, 18, an employee of Valdeacourt Farms in Putnam County, said the less-than-favorable conditions have slowed down hay cultivation and harvesting operations considerably.

"For hay, to do just one field, you need at least three dry days. You need a day to cut it, a day for it to sit and dry — preferably two — and another day to bale it," he said. "We can't really get in the fields if there's six inches of water standing in the low spots."

Normally, a hay farmer is able to get two to three harvests per field over the course of a cultivation season lasting from mid-May to October.

This year, Legg said many of the fields on the 300-acre farm probably wouldn't be viable enough to warrant a second cutting.

"We end up cutting a field, then it rains on it and we're done," he said. "People won't buy hay if it's been rained on."

Legg said the extreme heat has caused rapid growth of weeds and other undesirable plants, which cut down on the amount of actual hay produced.

"There's more in the fields, but less of the good stuff," he said.

According to the National Weather Service, the region had a total of 7.12 inches of rainfall in June as compared to the average of 4.09 inches.

June also saw three days where temperatures reached 89 degrees, a rarity in a month with a normal average temperature of 83.

Earlier this month, the area felt the effects of a heat wave that swept through much of the central and eastern United States. For five days at midmonth, temperatures rose past 90 degrees, leading the weather service to place much of the region under a heat advisory.

The area has had at least 5.4 inches of rainfall in July.

Bill Rice, 54, of Putnam County, said the combination of too much rain and excessive heat has put his 150-acre operation more than a month behind schedule.

"I'm just now getting the first cutting done," he said. "There may not be some second cuttings because the weather put me so far behind and it won't have time to come back."

Rice said he has been forced to work around the weather, cutting his fields when he normally wouldn't just because the rain finally let up.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.