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All right.

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Thanks so much, Liz, and good afternoon, everyone.

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Like Liz said, I’m Joosh Bendorf.

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I am the Climate Outreach Specialist with the Division of Extension and the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, and I’m going to be giving you a AG weather update as part of our webinar today.

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Just as a reminder, this is a shortened version of our longer Wisconsin AG weather outlook that we post with extension crop and soils every week.

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This week’s version should be coming out either light later today or tomorrow, so keep your eyes open for that.

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But let’s get into our quick weather update.

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So over the past two weeks since our last Badger Crop Connect webinar, things have been a little warm across the state of Wisconsin.

0:50
We’ve seen several days over the past two weeks that have had high temperatures at or above 70°.

0:56
You see the map there on the left showing the number of days where we’ve had a high temperature of 70° or higher across the state.

1:04
More so concentrated kind of over on the western side of the state where we’ve seen four or five days that have had highs in the 70s, a little bit lesser as you go North

1:11
And east, this is just, this isn’t too far above the climatological average, which is kind of in the mid to upper 60s this time of year, but is a little bit warm for this time of year.

1:23
One day in particular last week, Monday, April 29th was a very warm day, especially here in the southern part of the state where I live, where 35 stations in Wisconsin hit a new record high on April 29th.

1:35
And for many, this was the first instance of 80° weather that we’ve seen so far this year with high temperatures of 10 to 15° above normal or in the case of South Central and southeastern Wisconsin, as much as 20° above normal.

1:50
So pretty warm day we had last week.

1:54
Turning our attention to precip, this is April 29th through May 6, precip analysis from NOAA.

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What we’re seeing here just one second so I can read my notes.

2:06
We saw anywhere from about 1/2 inch to an inch and a half of precipitation across the southern half of the state last week.

2:13
That area there shaded in green.

2:15
There was kind of this little bullseye of heavier precipitation that was just centered like right over Madison with that where there was 2 inches or more precipitation at some stations in the Madison area.

2:26
And Dane County overall saw two to three days with over 1/4 inch of precipitation.

2:33
So multiple rainy days last week around in and around Dane County, Lesser totals to the north with totals of 1/10 of an inch or less further up in that North Central region where in past weeks we’ve seen higher precip total.

2:46
So a little bit drier up for our folks in the north last week.

2:51
So looking at the 30 day now, what we’re seeing in our 30 day, looking at accumulated precipitation and how that compares to our normals, we’re seeing above the climatological normal from a kind of a belt there from the West central to the northeast part of Wisconsin where 3 to 5 inches was common over the last 30 days.

3:13
These are areas that are over the climatological average.

3:18
But if you see down in the in the far South and in the southeast parts of Wisconsin, we had less than two inches of precipitation over the last 30 days and those areas are well below, well below normal in some cases right around the Illinois State line less than 50% of average.

3:35
So pretty dry down in that part of the state.

3:40
Taking a look now at our apologies, just need to move this so I can see my notes.

3:48
Taking a look at 2025 precipitation so far, we see a lot of that precipitation again is kind of in that West central to northeast part of Wisconsin and that’s the area that is trending a couple inches above the normal so far since January 1st.

4:04
And then again, that South that southern part of the state, we’re lagging a couple inches behind our normals as well as in the far northwest.

4:14
Turning now to soil moisture.

4:15
These are some screenshots from the WISCO net on May 6th around midday.

4:21
The units of these map values, this is a volumetric soil moisture.

4:25
So volume of soil, our volume of water divided by volume of soil.

4:29
So the percent of that soil volume and pore space that is water.

4:33
And we see at 48 and 20 inches our volumetric soil water content.

4:40
And if we look at how this has changed from last week’s outlook, so you know, across a lot of these stations, we’ve seen some small decreases in our soil moisture content, especially kind of in our central and northern stations where like I said before, you know it’s been wet in past weeks, but we had a drier week over the past seven or so days and that’s allowed our soils to dry out.

5:05
But in some stations in a, in a in South Central and southwestern Wisconsin, we’ve seen some small gains where precipitation totals were a little bit higher.

5:16
Soil moisture models.

5:17
This is a satellite based soil moisture product that estimates soil moisture down to 100 centimeters and compares it to previous years.

5:25
So areas that are showing up in green are areas that are wetter than it normally is for this time of year.

5:31
And then vice versa for areas that are in yellow, orange or red.

5:35
So similar to our report from last week, there is 70th percentile or higher coverage in the central and NE counties where it’s been a little bit wetter over the past 30 days or so.

5:46
This area has expanded slightly to the West and South due to rains that we received last week.

5:52
Far South part of the state, right around Illinois and the southeast is still showing abnormal dryness at that area is really missed out on precipitation so far in 2025.

6:03
But the majority of the state is near or above normal for soil moisture.

6:09
Turning our attention to the drought monitor, we really don’t see much in the way of drought in the state of Wisconsin, just kind of down in the far southwest part of the state where we’re lagging behind for precip so far in 2025.

6:21
But overall over 97% of the state of Wisconsin is drought free right now.

6:26
And just as a reminder, those areas that are shaded in yellow, that is not technically drought.

6:30
That’s what we call abnormal dryness.

6:33
So kind of trending in the direction of drought, but it’s not quite there yet.

6:39
Seven day temperatures, average temperatures in the southern part of the state, we’re kind of right around the 50 to 55° and then in the northern part of the state in the upper 40s.

6:50
And like I was saying, highs hit 80 plus in the South on Monday last week.

6:55
And this was and these temperatures are within a within plus or minus the degree of normal for most of the state.

7:02
So nothing too unseasonal for this time of year.

7:08
Looking now at soil temperatures, soil temperatures at 4, 8 and 20 inches are either are in the mid to upper 50s in the South or lower 50s to upper 40s in the north.

7:22
Corn and soybean progress, Corn and soybean planting made big gains from the previous week’s NASS reports.

7:30
This is our report from May 4th.

7:33
Both corn and soybeans made over 10% jumps in progress from last week.

7:39
But overall, Wisconsin is lagging behind neighboring states for planting progress.

7:44
You can see how Wisconsin compares to the states surrounding it.

7:48
And that’s been due to some of the wet and cold soil conditions that we’ve had frost freeze risk.

7:55
So even though, you know, we’re now into May and we’re starting to get this, you know, days where we have temperatures in the 70s or even in the 80s, we’re not out of the woods yet in terms of frost and freeze.

8:05
So the map you’re seeing there on the left that is a new product from the National Weather Service in Milwaukee, their frost freeze probabilities tool.

8:14
And that is that shows the day-to-day chances where we could have conditions that are favorable for frost.

8:20
So this map is showing the probability of low temperatures of 30° and calm winds less than 7 miles an hour for this upcoming this upcoming night into tomorrow morning.

8:32
We see we have some low risk of of freeze across a lot of the eastern and central parts of Wisconsin.

8:41
And just what are probabilities moving forward?

8:44
Right now we’re kind of at a 50:50 chance of getting a a low temperature of 32° after May 6.

8:53
So not a strong probability it will happen, but the risk is still there.

9:00
Turning now to our forecast for the next 7 days, precip forecast, a pretty quiet week is on tap.

9:07
Predicted totals precipitation of 1/4 inch or less except for the far northwest.

9:12
That seems to be kind of the the Bullseye area for precipitation over the next seven days, but still not very high totals for this time of year.

9:21
Timing for this, some chances are upcoming on Friday, tomorrow and then next week, Thursday.

9:27
Right now, probabilities are looking better for Thursday, but that’s still 7 days out.

9:31
So stay tuned on that and always be sure to check your local forecast for details on totals and timing.

9:39
Looking ahead to 8 to 14 days as we head into the middle to later part of May, both temperatures and precipitation are leaning towards above normal.

9:49
And just as a reminder, this doesn’t mean it’s a slam dunk that it’s going to be warmer and wetter for this time of year.

9:54
Just the probabilities are leaning a little bit more in that direction compared to a below normal precip and temperatures and 90 days.

10:03
So looking ahead out into the early parts and middle parts of summer, this map’s a little bit dated at this point.

10:11
April 17th is when this came out, but there is a slight lean towards some above normal temperatures and equal chances for precipitation and for temperatures in the northern, northern and western parts of the state.

10:24
And with equal chances, we really can’t say with any certainty as to what the temperatures and precipitation are going to do at this time.

10:31
So again, just something we’ll have to keep an eye on as we move forward.

10:35
And with that, that is all I have today and I would be happy to take any questions if you have any.