Although this winter trended towards the more snowy side, Bernard thinks that all things considered, this cold season wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There wasn’t an overload of 30-below temperature readings.
“We did have a stretch where it did get cold for awhile,” Bernard said. “But those stretches were largely short in duration. Also, the temperatures we experienced were cold, but generally more moderate than I would have expected considering all the snow we had.”
Although the thawing process has begun, he’s afraid it’s going to be awhile until warmer temperatures stick around for good. When perusing the National Weather Service’s Web site, it looks like it will be two to three weeks before “we really start to see things shape up.”
“Cold and wet could be a chunk of April,” Bernard said. “But the ground is getting to the point where it’s thawed pretty out. Just around my yard and at the experiment station up in Waseca, the frost is largely out.”
There will be spots where the ground isn’t as soft, such as the north-facing slopes on some of the surrounding hills. Those areas have more reflective cover, so frost might remain for awhile yet.
“As we get more rain, especially warm rain, that will eliminate the frost too,” Bernard said. “It won’t be long until the drain tiles will take away some of this precipitation that we just received, which will hopefully set us up for dryer fields in April.”
Whenever he drives past the local golf course, he glances at the LeSueur River, and so far, it’s not as high as previous springs. The colder temperatures will most definitely slow down the flooding concerns.
“I don’t think it will get much worse, unless we get heavy precipitation events in the near future,” Bernard said. “However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It looks like April will get cold, but not give us a whole lot of precipitation.”
Compared to the last couple years, he expects the planting season to be a tad later. Usually the corn planting begins the week of April 20, but March and April’s colder temperatures will probably not allow things to go as planned.
“Who knows, it could be April 20, if the weather decides to turn around,” Bernard said. “It doesn’t take long once all the snow melts and the frost is out, with the amount of drain tile we have in these fields now.”
