The Province isn't sounding the alarm just yet on a possible drought this spring/summer, despite Manitoba's 2021 hydrologic forecast released earlier this week.
Southern Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan are down 20 per cent of normal precipitation of the past 40 years, with some areas in southwest Manitoba at record low precipitation levels, according to Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler.
"A good rainfall, maybe even a late snowstorm, would mitigate a lot of that," he noted, adding an average rainfall is all it takes to stave off a drought. "That would make sure the fields are wet enough to get crops in."
Both the U.S. National Weather Service and Environment and Climate Change Canada are predicting near-normal to below-normal precipitation for the basin in the months of April and May.
"We are counting on some kind of rainfall that would get the crops going," added Schuler. "There's probably still enough moisture to get crops in the ground, there would not be enough to sustain them for any length of time without more moisture coming down."
On that note, Schuler noted committee meetings are taking place to form early drought mitigation plans should they be required.
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