Heavy rainfall in the southern Midwest and Southeast during the last 10-14 days has done wonders to reduce the impacts of drought or outright eliminate it. But building dryness during the next couple of weeks could work to reverse fortunes in some areas or make a few drier areas worse.

A stalled front across the Southeast has been more of a diffuse zone of instability, causing daily and widespread showers and thunderstorms from the Gulf of America north into the Ohio Valley for much of the last two weeks. Rainfall amounts have been extremely heavy for a lot of areas in that time, dumping one to sometimes two months' worth of rainfall. Though deficits have been extremely large across many of these areas, and more work needs to be done to eliminate all of the drought, major improvement is noteworthy, especially for agriculture, with above-normal topsoil moisture in most areas. However, deep deficits mean that subsoil moisture is not optimal just yet, and more rain would be preferred. These showers will continue through about June 1 before that front gets pushed down into the Gulf or off the Southeast coast.

Across the Midwest, rains moved through, but have been close to normal in most areas. Outside of southern areas, near the Ohio River that have benefited from heavy rain in the Southeast, topsoil moisture is a little more limited. New areas of abnormal dryness have popped up in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Iowa on the latest update to the drought monitor. This is where more of the concern lies, especially with a drier pattern settling in.

This week, an upper-level ridge, which promotes hotter and drier conditions, has built up over central Canada. In doing so, temperatures have soared well-above normal across the western half of the Midwest, with multiple readings up near or over the 90-degree-Fahrenheit mark. That ridge has acted like a block in the pattern, not allowing a system in the West to advance eastward. That system instead will get stuck in the Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies this weekend and well into next week. You can find more details of the impacts here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Eventually, that system will break down the ridge and allow the low-pressure center to pass through Canada, sending a cold front through the Midwest during the second half of next week. Scattered showers are likely because of the front, but overall coverage of showers is currently forecast to be low, which may not amount to much precipitation through the Midwest. Some showers may make it south of the Ohio River as well, but again, precipitation is expected to be limited.

The larger concern will be that the upper-level ridge will tend to build back up behind it again during the second week of June. Models place this ridge in different spots, but many are preferring central Canada once again. In doing so, another week of drier conditions is likely across the Midwest. And, without a front to produce showers in the Southeast, that region is likely to be drier as well.

Underneath the ridge, temperatures will remain above normal. The combination of higher temperatures and lack of rainfall should lead to lower soil moisture and increased stress for early crop development. Momentum toward reducing drought in the Southeast may reverse, and at least for a short time, conditions could look a bit concerning for row crops.

These conditions somewhat mirror what occurred three years ago, during the last super El Nino. For the second half of May and almost all of June 2023, hotter and drier conditions were noteworthy. Drought expanded quickly and deeply across many areas of the Corn Belt, causing many to equate the conditions with the drought of 2012. However, during the last week of June, the skies opened up with a derecho that brought heavy rain along the Iowa-Missouri border into Illinois and didn't let up until mid-August, saving the crop.

The situation may not be completely similar here in 2026, but this drier stretch is coming around the same period, just not for the same length of time. Long-range forecasts largely have the pattern shifting during the second half of June into early July, either by breaking down the ridge or pushing it back to the Southwest U.S.

Either way would allow disturbances to move through the Corn Belt and into the Southeast. The placement of this ridge will be key, however. If it sticks around into the Plains, the Western Corn Belt could see much drier conditions, and we may have issues with a return of dryness and drought concerns there. But summers during El Nino tend to favor most areas east of the Rockies, and there is no reason to move off that forecast just yet.

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John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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