More precipitation is likely on the Christmas list of many western Canadian farmers this year.
As the map below shows, large portions of all three Prairie provinces have seen below normal precipitation since about the end of the harvest, with things particularly grim for the area east of Regina all the way over to Winnipeg. The dry start to the winter followed a dry fall, which in turn followed a mostly dry summer.
In fact, the four-year map (also below) shows abnormal dryness (anywhere from 60 to 85% normal precipitation) across a broad swath of the Prairies, from Calgary to Winnipeg.
“Growing or perpetual drought during the winter in North America is never a good sign,” meteorologist Drew Lerner said in the latest edition of his Canadian Agriculture Weather Prognosticator, released earlier this month. “The winter is normally a time of moisture replenishment especially in US crop areas. For Canada that favoured period for moisture restoration is in the late autumn before the ground freezes up and after the harvest is complete.”
Although a storm did indeed bring heavy snowfall to the Prairies in early November, the bulk of that precipitation fell more to the west and provided only limited drought relief for eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Since then, things have remained mostly dry – especially in the east.
Meanwhile, the near-term forecast shows little hope of improvement, with drier-biased conditions expected for a large portion of the Prairies during the coming week.
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