▶2026 Mid-Season Wisconsin Ag Weather Recap and Outlook

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All right.

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Thanks so much Jerry and good afternoon everyone.

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Like Jerry said, my name is Josh Bendorf.

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I’m a climate Outreach Specialist with the Wisconsin State Climatology office, which is a part of the Division of Extension.

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And today I’m going to be giving you a mid season ag weather recap and outlook.

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Last time we talked was back in early April.

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So we’re going to do a little bit of a recap of the past few months and some outlooks for the next few weeks into the rest of the growing season.

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So first we’re going to recap April and May.

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A lot went on during the months of April and May 1st.

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We’re going to start off with temperature.

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So these maps show the county average temperature rank for both the months of April and May.

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And so basically this is comparing 2026 to the the entire period of record going back to 1895.

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So how does 2025–2026–excuse me stack up?

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So you can see on the map on the left April temperatures.

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A lot of the counties are shaded in orange, meaning that most of Wisconsin saw above average temperatures during the month of April.

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Statewide, our departure from average was about 4°F and it was our 21st warmest April on record.

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So ranked on the higher end for April’s, but down in the far SE and South Central part of the state, it was actually a top 10 warmest April on record.

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So much warmer than average, especially down in the southern southeastern parts of Wisconsin.

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Those counties shaded in darker orange.

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But pivoting to May, things were pretty average during the month of May.

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You see a lot of the counties there are shaded in Gray.

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Things were kind of middle of the road.

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We didn’t depart much from average temperature the month ranked middle of the road.

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So pretty much average across the board for the for Wisconsin during the month of May.

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But I wanted to show these temperature plots for a few stations just to show that, you know, even though temperatures might have been average for the month of May, we had a lot of ups and downs.

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So this is for the the Dane County Regional Airport in Madison.

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And so you can see the months of April and May and how temperatures fluctuated between above normal and below normal during this two-month.

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The average last freeze date for Dane County is around May 2nd.

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So you can see that there, that vertical dark line.

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And we did actually get below freezing on that day in Dane County, but we had some other days that were at or below freezing a week or two after, after that May 2nd date.

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So we had some abnormally late freeze heading into the middle part of May down in Dane County.

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And I’m talking with a few colleagues, this did have some some negative crop impacts, especially to some fruit trees that had already come out of bloom.

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Some of those got nipped by the frost.

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But you can see there we’ve rebounded in temperatures to normal or above normal for the rest of May.

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So again, even though May was average, we had a lot of ups and downs.

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Similar plot just for the Wausau airport.

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For the folks joining us in the North Central part of the state, this is how temperatures varied in your neck of the woods.

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Average last freeze dates a little bit later for you all up there, May 11th.

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Ironically, we hit freezing temperatures on May 11th and we haven’t hit freezing since then.

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So we were right at average up in Wausau for this year.

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Pivoting now to precipitation, April and May big flip flop here.

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We went from having a very wet April to a very wet May.

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The counties there that are shaded in dark green on the April map had their record wettest April.

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The county shaded in dark brown on the May map had their record driest May on record.

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You can see a couple counties there in the southeast part of the state Rock, Walworth, Jefferson and Waukesha went from having their wettest April on record to their driest May on record.

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So a huge pendulum swing from one side to the other.

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You can see some of the statistics there on the bottom of those maps.

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For the month of April.

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We, we our departure from average is about four inches, which was more than double what we would expect for the month of April as a state.

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It ranked as our highest April precipitation on record and a lot of counties, especially on the eastern side of the state saw their record wettest April on record.

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But then flip flopping to May where the state had less than half of average precipitation.

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So we went from having more than double to less than half.

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So a big momentum shift.

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The month of April in particular with all that rain that we had, some of that did come during some pretty impactful severe weather.

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What we did was we compiled some statistics of the combined number of severe thunderstorm, tornado and flash flood warnings that we got during the month of April and compared them to all other months going back to the year 2005.

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That was our period of record for the data set that we were using.

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What you can see is that April 2026 by this metric was by far the most severe month that we had on record going at least going back to 2005.

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And it was more than 40 more warnings than we had in June of 2005, our second most severe month.

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So again, a lot of activity going on during the month of April.

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Accumulated precipitation.

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This is a graph showing accumulated precipitation between April 1st and May 31st for Fort Atkinson in Jefferson County.

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Remember I mentioned that Jefferson County had their record wettest April, record driest May.

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So I just wanted to show how show this kind of in a graphical format.

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April precipitation at Fort Atkinson, we had close to 8 inches of precipitation during the month of April, far and away beyond the average.

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You can see what the average is there, that brown line.

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So we’re almost double that, if not more than double.

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But then by the end of May, we are back down closer to average because during the month of May, we only had a little over 1/2 inch of precipitation.

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So again, big momentum shift.

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And so with that dry, with the wet April and the dry May that we had that had impacts on drought in the state.

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The map you see there on the left is the US Drought Monitor map for Wisconsin for April, April 28th.

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So after that really wet April that we had, you can see that we were drought free in the state.

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We just had a little bit of D0 or abnormally dry conditions kind of up in far northwestern Wisconsin, but that was about it.

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But because of the dry May that we had, especially in the southeast corner of the state and the northwest side of the state, those areas got into abnormal dryness because we didn’t have much precipitation.

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And remember, as we’re getting into this late spring, early summer, evapotranspiration rates are going up.

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So evaporation and transpiration, water being lost to the atmosphere as temperatures warm and crops are taking up moisture.

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So as the moisture demand goes up and we have a dry month like we did in May, it’s not long before we can get into some abnormally dry conditions.

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But with the dry May, crop progress was able to go along at a pretty good pace.

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This.

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These maps show crop progress corn planted and soybeans planted at the end of May.

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By the end of May, 82% of corn was planted and by the end of end of May, 75% of soybeans were planted.

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And both of these were running ahead of the five year average pace thanks to a lot of days that folks were able to get out in the fields.

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So now let’s pivot to the last month or so, June into the first part of July.

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These maps show average temperature and then the departure from normal.

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The map on the left shows that most of Wisconsin was in kind of the middle to upper 60s average temperature for the month of June into the first days of July.

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Across the board, temperatures were seasonal in the state, generally within a degree or two of average.

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You can see most of the map there showing up in white, so not big deviations from normal.

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A few areas kind of around Green Bay and up in the far north that were a few degrees above average, but seasonal for the most part.

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But this didn’t mean we got away Scott free from having any kind of extreme heat.

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We got our first taste of some extreme summer heat a little over a week ago.

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The graphic you’re seeing here on the screen is a plot of apparent temperature and dew point from the Black Creek Whisco Nut Station.

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This is just north of Appleton and out of Gamey County.

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And this is for June 29th through July 2nd where we had some really hot, humid conditions in Wisconsin.

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So the apparent temperature is basically the heat index if you’re familiar with that.

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So if the temperature that your body is going to feel when you’re outside doing activity, we can see that with some really, really warm temperatures.

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We had temperatures getting up into the 90s on this on these days.

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But we also had some really high dew points as well.

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You can see the green line, we had dew points getting into the mid to upper 70s.

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And with that, we had apparent temperatures that were topping 100° on multiple days.

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So really dangerous conditions to be outside.

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So our first taste of extreme summer heat for the year accumulated precipitation.

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Over the last several weeks, it’s been really concentrated on the West, central and southwest parts of the state.

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You can see those areas have received 8 inches or more since June 1st, some cases 10 inches or more.

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These totals are well above normal, 150% or more of normal, in some cases double average, but in other parts of the state wasn’t nearly as excessive as this.

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As you got further north and further E totals were closer to 3 to 6 inches and at or below normal.

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So what this meant for soil moisture, all the up and downs with precipitation that we’ve had is that we’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the amount of soil moisture that we’ve had as well.

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The graph here shows Wisconet 4 inch plant available water change.

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So this is basically the depth of water that’s available for plant roots to take up over the top 4 inches of soil.

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So the dark blue bars are the current values or current as of a few days ago, July 6th, what we saw one month ago and what we saw two months ago, remember.

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So May 1st, the hashed bars, remember we were coming out of a very wet April.

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So you can see those bars are pretty high.

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We had a lot of plant available water by early May, but then once the spigot shut off and we got into a very dry May, you can see by June 1st, we had a big dip down to some very low plant available water levels.

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There some cases 0 plant available water or no water available for plants to take up.

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But then swinging the momentum once again as we’ve had some seasonal to above average precipitation during the month of June, our soil moisture has rebounded.

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This isn’t the case for all parts of the state, but you can see there a lot of folks have seen big rebounds in plant available water.

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And so from the latest NASS report, Wisconsin topsoil moisture that surplus adequate short to very short.

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Right now 12% of Wisconsin fields are reporting surplus soil moisture and and topsoil, 79% adequate and 9 short to very short.

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But I did want to point out that southeastern counties are the most dry right now.

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Where fields are the most dry.

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32% of fields in the Southeast Wisconsin Crop Reporting District are reporting short to very short soil moisture.

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So the drought monitor, we just got an update for that today, earlier today.

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So comparing late May to where we are now, you can see it’s been kind of hit or miss.

11:51
We still have a lot of abnormal dryness in the state, especially kind of more to the East Central part of the state and the northwest where precipitation totals were below normal over the last five or six weeks.

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We do have a little bit of D1 drought in the state.

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That little area there South of Madison that was added in a few weeks ago.

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But as of last week, we did have an area of D1 kind of over in the Lacrosse area.

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But thanks to some of that rainfall that we’ve got recently, that area of D1 has been eliminated.

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Where we stand condition wise for our our corn and soybean crops, these maps show the percent that’s good to excellent.

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Even with all the precipitation ups and downs that we’ve had, some of that early season severe weather, things are still looking pretty good.

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We have 82% good to excellent corn and 78% for soybeans.

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Wisconsin’s one of on the higher end of the spectrum for Midwest state.

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So even with all the ups and downs, things are still doing pretty well.

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Please let us know in the chat if you’re seeing things that are different in your area.

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And then for our livestock folks that are on the call today, just to quickly go over pasture and range conditions.

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Right now in the state, 66% of pasture and range is rated good to excellent.

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So now with the last few minutes that we have, let’s get into outlooks.

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So for the one to two week time frame right now for temperature and precipitation, temperatures are leaning toward temperature probabilities are leaning towards above normal for pretty much all of Wisconsin, more so up in the northwest part of the state.

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So 40 to 50% chances for most of Wisconsin, then 50 to 60 up in that far northwest part of the state.

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Just as a reminder, these maps are not showing how much above normal or below normal that we’re expecting to see, just the chances that we are going to be above or below or near normal.

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So just keep that in mind.

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And then the map in the center of the screen, the precipitation map pretty much all this date again leading towards below normal precipitation, a little bit less or so in the far southern tiers of counties, but below normal precipitation, above normal temperatures across the board.

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And you can see what our benchmarks are for normal temperature and precipitation there on the right side of your screen, the one month outlook.

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So this is for July.

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These are a little over a week old at this point.

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But just for July as a whole, no strong indications for most of Wisconsin in terms of temperature and precipitation.

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Temperature shows equal chances of below, above or near normal across the state, which is why the map is showing they’re showing up in white.

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We can’t say with certainty one way or the other.

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Northern Wisconsin is showing a little bit of a lean towards below normal precipitation, but equal chances other than that.

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But stay tuned for next week’s AG weather outlook for Wisconsin because the CPC will be releasing August outlooks a week from now.

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The first outlooks for August and we’ll include those in next week’s report and then for the remainder of summer into the first part of fall.

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So basically the rest of the growing season.

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Again, no strong indications one way or the other, but southern part of Wisconsin could has a slight chance to be below normal for temperatures and then most of Wisconsin has a slight chance to be below normal for precipitation.

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But again, these are by no means strong.

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Leans 33 to 40% chances.

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What does this all mean for drought?

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So this is this map is showing how drought is expected to change between the months of July and September.

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You can see in Wisconsin there that drought isn’t expected to develop in any new areas right now, probably because we’re not seeing any strong indications one way or the other for precipitation.

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That little area of D1 drought in, in, in and around Dane County is expected to persist.

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That area of that I talked about around Lacrosse, that area of D1 that was there last week, that has been eliminated.

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So that removal that is showing up here is likely that has happened.

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So that’s where we stand right now.

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This is what we expect the drought monitor to look like by the end of September.

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So no major changes right now.

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And so with that, that’s all I have for you today.

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I would encourage you to scan this QR code if you are a regular viewer user of the Ag Weather Outlook for Wisconsin.

16:14
We’d love to get some feedback from you on ways that we can make the AgWOW better ways that it’s useful to you.

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But if you have any questions, be happy to take those now or leave them in the chat.

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And I’ll turn it back to Jerry.

16:26
Well, thanks, Josh.

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We do have one question.

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What is there?

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Is there a resource where we can find where you had the the the May and April being so different from each other?

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How many times has that occurred?

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Or is there a history of where one month is, you know, that wet or with that dry compared to the the month ahead of it where they’re, they’re just almost polar opposites.

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Is is that tracked anywhere?

16:56
Yeah, I that’s a great question.

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I can put a link in the chat to the website where I got those county temperature ranking maps.

17:03
But yeah, that is something we have been seeing, some data that I looked at going back to 2023 has shown we’ve had these pendulum swings from too wet to too dry back and forth several times since like going back to the drought of 2023.

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So that is something we are noticing more of in Wisconsin and these shifts from one extreme to the other.

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So great question.

17:27
Yeah, yeah.

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If there’s something you could share back to us, we’ll make sure and and get that out.

17:30
So thanks again, Josh.

17:31
Appreciate it.