Remnants Of Hurricane Ian Will Help Iowa Farmers Further Harvest

It’s been a roller-coaster of the last few weeks when it comes to weather in the United States.

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Here in Iowa, we saw record highs followed by frosts with lows, last Wednesday reaching 29 degrees in areas of Northeast Iowa. Our corn and soybeans that were not fully mature yet faced killing frosts.

But here in Iowa, we watched as the southeast United States was devastated by Hurricane Ian, with 100+ MPH winds and flooding conditions.

As the hurricane died down, it left a high-pressure system that will help farmers in Iowa who are looking to get out into the fields. Josh Michel, a field agronomist in northeast Iowa says this pressure system will help give farmers ideal harvest conditions.

With the hurricane that went through, there's a really high-pressure system that's blocking most of the Midwest and it sounds like it's going to be sitting there for quite a while. At least for the next seven to 10 days maybe and it's going to take a pretty sizable shift in our jet stream or a weather pressure system to come through it and knock it over.

As people finished up their silage harvest, people started to look to start the corn grain harvest. So far, less than 10 percent of fields in the region have been combined.

We're starting to see a few combines out there starting to roll. That's probably the biggest thing that's going on right now just waiting for moistures to dry down so we can really get in the full swing of harvest.

So far, across the state, 26 percent of soybeans and 11 percent of corn have been harvested.