KANSAS CITY — Highly volatile weather across the Great Plains and into a part of the Midwest in recent weeks has raised some production concerns for winter wheat and will soon raise some greater concern for corn planting across the Midwest and Great Plains.

Recent flooding rain in the lower Midwest, Delta and Tennessee River Basin was quite impressive and perhaps a little reminiscent of 2019, which was one of the last truly wet springs that occurred ahead of the recent series of North American drought years.

Concern about a wet year already was beginning to surface in the late winter, but the more recent torrential rain event has that concern rising to the top of the usual spring fears over production potential for the spring and summer crops.

Rainfall in early April varying from 4 to 10 inches in the Ohio River Basin and areas south into the northern Delta and parts of the northern Tennessee River may have been a game-changer for some producers.

Many areas from northern Arkansas to Kentucky reported 10 to nearly 15 inches of rain, with a few unconfirmed greater amounts. Flooding was serious and still ongoing in the second week of April.

Source: World Weather, Inc.

The wet bias running from northeastern Texas through the Delta to the Ohio River Basin seemed to be a familiar pattern. Indeed, many spring seasons generate this pattern, and it typically results in delayed spring field progress.

Delays in corn planting because of wet fields might gain a little more attention if Brazil’s Safrinha corn crop that was planted three weeks later than usual runs into a problem with dryness.

Also, while it may be too wet in a part of the Delta and lower eastern Midwest, there is “some potential” that dryness may be a feature to deal with in parts of the Great Plains and western Corn and Soybean Belt. Indeed, dryness is already an issue throughout the Great Plains and into a part of the western Midwest.

Dryness in the central United States in early April and too much moisture in the lower eastern Midwest and Delta are not uncommon, and there is plenty of time for the pattern to change. However, there is evidence that any changes may be slow to come, and that may lead to a greater level of concern over these weather anomalies.

This year’s dominating weather patterns seem to be promoting these anomalies, and there is not much reason to anticipate change.

The bias for dryness in the central and southwestern Plains and wet conditions from eastern Texas through the Delta to the lower and eastern Midwest comes from the lunar cycle as well as the solar cycle and the negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation. These anomalies have been discussed in the past, but another pattern that recently has emerged is associated with the neutral ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) conditions that have prevailed in recent months and those expected this spring and summer.

Most of 2024 was a neutral ENSO year, meaning no El Niño or La Niña bias. That is hard to believe, since it seemed like all that the media talked about last year was the coming La Niña. Well, La Niña never materialized until December, and it lingered into February as a very weak event.

The last time a similar pattern occurred was in 1967-68. La Niña never evolved in that year, but La Niña-like conditions were prevalent and influenced North American weather during the winter, just like this year. Neutral ENSO conditions occurred both before and after the winter, and the same is expected in this year.

To make matters all the more interesting, 1967-68 was very near the solar maximum that occurred in November 1968. The most recent solar maximum occurred in August 2024, making the sun’s influence on weather in North America similar in the two years.

That similarity — coupled with the Neutral ENSO conditions, with a brief interlude of La Niña-like conditions during the winter — has resulted in an interesting parallel that might influence summer 2025.

Spring 1968 (March through May) looked very similar to what some forecasters are seeing will dominate the rest of April and May.

That pattern included above- to well-above-normal rainfall in eastern Texas, the Delta, the Tennessee River Basin and the lower Ohio River Basin. There was also some dryness in the southeastern United States and especially in the central Plains that extended into Iowa and some neighboring states. There was also an area of wet weather that evolved in the Upper Midwest, while the Pacific Northwest was drier-biased. Each of these anomalies are either present today or expected to evolve in the next few weeks.

The summer of 1968 brought more rain to the western and north-central parts of the United States and some significant rain to a part of Canada’s southern Prairies. In the meantime, dryness festered in a part of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, the Delta, the Tennessee River Basin and a part of the southeastern states, as well as the middle and northern Atlantic Coast states.

Spring 2025 is likely to look like that of 1968, and because of that, forecasters are interested in the summer of 1968, which may look somewhat similar to that of 2025. However, the solar cycle, negative PDO, lunar cycle and warm ocean water surrounding North America all will have an influence as well.

Interestingly, these other influences have a good chance of supporting the 1968 spring bias with a possible westward shift in the driest summer conditions into the central and southern Plains, Delta and southwestern Corn Belt.