We may not be able to change the weather, but we sure can have a super time anticipating what may — or may not — happen as we head towards the seeding season. Always a popular speaker, Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc., spoke to a packed house at CropSphere 2014, outlining current snow pack,… Read More
The drought of 2012 is still fresh in the mind of many American farmers. As many get closer to the beginning of plant 2013, everyone has their fingers crossed that another drought does not wreak havoc on this year’s corn and soybean crop. Recent cool wet weather (in some cases snow) has pushed back planting,… Read More
Will Western Canada’s winter ever end? Well, yes, of course it will, it’s just taking its jolly sweet time moving on out and letting spring begin in earnest. While current conditions seem very dire, somehow Drew Lerner manages to turn all this snow and cool weather into a positive, as you’ll hear in this RealWeatherWatch… Read More
Patience is the name of the game for plant ’13 it would seem. That’s according to Drew Lerner, founder of World Weather, Inc. In this RealWeatherWatch episode, Lerner cautions that Ontario farmers hoping for a straight-forward, dry planting season are likely to be disappointed. Cool, wet and unsettled weather is likely the norm for much… Read More
It’s the last day of FarmTech — my very first one — and it’s been quite the week. The conference started with a big, bombastic Don Cherry look-a-like, featured popular presentations from Patrick Fabian, Stuart Barden, Drew Lerner and OMAFRA’s Peter Johnson, with the one and only Ron McLean speaking at Wednesday’s banquet, and will close… Read More
Well, it’s that time again. The time of year where we take our best shot at predicting what the next 4 months will look like. Call it a coping mechanism or whatever. If it helps us to persevere until the spring, bring it on. This time around we look to Drew Lerner of World Weather… Read More
For a portion of the west, winter has come early. The tail end of October brought a huge dump of snow to parts of Alberta that has, for the most part, stuck around. That begs the question, is this what we can expect for the rest of the winter? Compared to last “winter”, this kind… Read More
A great deal of Ontario is off to a great start. Everyone has tried to put last year’s cool wet spring behind them and the ideal spring of 2012 has helped. This year farmers wish that some of that spring moisture would return. The ill timed and over abundant moisture that put producers in… Read More
What kind of weather can we expect this summer out west? There seems to be a little bit of confusion surrounding that point. Some weather services have been forecasting hot and dry, others have been saying cooler than normal. Considering the way the predictions for winter and the actual winter went this year, you can… Read More
With the exception of a few soaked areas, spring planting, even though late, and the early spring growing season went pretty well in Ontario in 2011. In general, crops progressed nicely through what could have been a real mess and there were some fairly decent yields to be seen across the province. So what can… Read More
We are in the middle of a weather brawl, and it feels like it. Wild winds, snow blasts and other types of unsettled weather are making life less than pleasant for all those impacted. Until winter actually moves to settle in, we can probably expect more of this instability to come. This seems to be… Read More
Farmers trying to get their fall tillage completed before winter sets in have had their efforts frustrated over the past few weeks. Cold, rainy conditions have been less than ideal when it comes to fieldwork. You can get sick of these unstable weather patterns pretty quick. It’s at this point that most people just want… Read More
Harvest has begun here in the West, and for the most part the outlook is good. Even with the weather here on the prairies being notoriously unstable, this summer has been one of the most consistently hot in a while. If that pattern holds, we could be looking at some pretty decent harvest weather. In… Read More
Harvest is the time where farmers look at the forecast every minute of the day. Is there an occupation more dependent on the weather? In the first episode of our new feature RealWeatherWatch, we take aim at the weather heading into the 2011 soybean harvest. The start of this planting season was rough to say… Read More
Canadian Farmers aren’t the only ones dealing with a challenging crop season this year. The U.S. midwest is dealing with a devastating tornado season as well as extremely wet conditions and flooding. Contrast that with the hot, dry drought conditions in places like Texas that have spawned wildfires and eliminated any hopes of planting a… Read More