scheduled tribe. Lewis — Mike Shane’s Illinois farm got a good soaking on May 8 shortly after planting his corn crop. Since then, rain has been hard to come by.
Many storms have calmed down before Shane reached the 200-acre area near Peoria.
“It comes across the Mississippi River and then it disappears,” said Shane, 47. “My corn looks absolutely awful at the moment.” Without substantial rain soon, “I don’t see any hope for it,” he said.
Heavy winter rain eased the drought in the west, but now the central part of the country is exceptionally dry. Crops are in jeopardy, rivers are in spate and cities and towns are anxiously awaiting a respite from the weather.
Experts say the drought in Central America is the worst since at least 2012 and is being compared in some areas to a 1988 drought that devastated crops of corn, wheat and soybeans. This year, although spring and early summer temperatures have been generally mild, rainfall has been severely deficient.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, operated by the federal government and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, reports that nearly half of Kansas is in extreme or exceptional drought conditions — the highest drought designation. More than a quarter of Nebraska is in extreme drought, and 13% is in exceptional drought. Dry conditions prevail over Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky.
Droughts and rainfall are increasing in frequency and intensity because of burning fossil fuels and other human activities that release greenhouse gases, according to data from a pair of satellites used to measure changes in Earth’s water storage. The study was published in March in the journal Nature Water.
Adam Hartman, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, said parts of Central America have been experiencing extreme drought since winter. In other states, a “sudden drought” has come to the fore in the last 2-3 months.
“As a result you’ve got a huge loss in topsoil, subsoil moisture,” Hartmann said. “We have noticed that the ground water level has also started depleting. We have seen that the flow of the water stream has started reducing.
This is affecting the crops. The US Department of Agriculture now rates only half the US corn crop as good or excellent – the lowest percentage since 1988. About two-thirds of the country’s corn-growing areas are in drought.
“It gives us some indication that we’re seeing widespread stress on those crops throughout the Corn Belt,” said Christa Swanson, economist at the National Corn Growers Association.
If the rains don’t come soon, Swanson believes the total yield could be about 1 billion bushels short of the original estimate of 16.7 billion bushels.
That doesn’t mean, Swanson said, that there would be a higher cost to consumers because most corn is used for feed, ethanol or is exported. The real effect is falling on the farmers.
“Their cost per acre is the same no matter what they produce,” Swanson said. “It is a challenge for farmers in these years where we have low production.”
The water level in the rivers is falling. The Mississippi River – especially from southern Illinois to the south – is extremely low in many places. It was just the last time the river reached or was close to record low water marks in many places, but the latest one returned to flood levels in the spring, before declining due to drought.
Lynn Muench, senior vice president of the American Waterways Operators, which advocates for the tugboat, towboat and barge industry, said barge capacity is being voluntarily reduced on certain stretches of the Mississippi River.
Losing capacity is a financial blow, Muench said, but operators are taking it easy.
“We are a flexible and resilient industry so we will keep moving forward,” he added.
Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, said many communities are on the edge. Droughts in the past have cost river communities billions of dollars in increased energy and water purification costs, reduced tourism revenue, commodity losses and other effects.
“Now we’re in a drought again,” Wellenkamp said. So far, the impact has been minimal, “but if we don’t get relief in July, everything will change,” he said.
On Shane’s 200-acre farm, the corn must be standing 10 feet tall by now. It’s barely up to her waist. The leaves have turned yellow and Shane isn’t sure if the ears of corn are even developing.
“If that’s the case, it’s useless,” he said.
But the farmers are not giving up hope. Swanson said the El Niño weather pattern has generally meant more rain and better growing conditions in Central America.
“We may see more favorable weather in the next two months, which may have a positive impact,” he added.
But even with El Niño, Hartmann said the seasonal outlook for the summer months projects below-normal rainfall.
“This drought is likely to last for a short time,” Hartmann said.
