April 2019 a Repeat of 2018?

I think all farmers have been watching the weather forecast hoping the weather system headed our way about the middle of this week will track a little farther South and miss Minnesota. It was exactly one year ago in April of 2018 we saw a snowstorm with a foot of snow. April 2018 was the coldest and with the most snow on record at the Southern research and Outreach Center at Waseca. Their weather records go back more than 100 years!

Hopefully we will see little snow and not a lot of rain either. It was nice to see fields drying out and river levels dropping over the last week. It was a little surprising at how quickly all the snow and frost melted. On March 18, 2019 there was 17 inches of frost in the ground. One week later all the frost was gone. On March 10 there was still 13 inches of snow on the ground. Only 10 days later all of the snow had melted.

So, with nice weather field conditions can change quickly, even in Minnesota. Bring on spring and hope that big weather system fizzles.