Southern Alberta farmers feeling hopeful after recent rains

Recent rain has crops in southern Alberta looking the best they have in years, but farmers know they're not out of the woods just yet.

LETHBRIDGE - About three weeks ago much of southern Alberta was hit with one of its biggest rainfalls in years, with some areas of southwestern Alberta receiving as much as five inches of rain.

All that moisture has many feeling optimistic.

“The crops were dead standing there,” said Stephen Vandervalk, who farms near Fort Macleod. “They were out of moisture. I don’t know if it would even combine if it wasn’t for that rain here. And that I think it was three weeks ago,”

Promising data

Close to 61 percent of crops in southern Alberta are in good to excellent condition.

About 80 percent of the soil moisture is rated fair or higher.

After years of dry conditions, the big rainfall came as a welcome change.

“Things have really turned around in the last few weeks, I would say since we did get some moisture,” said Sean Stanford, a farmer from Magrath. “The crops were kind of dry. Things were kind of hurting a little bit.

“Some of the earlier seeded stuff still suffered from lack of moisture, but anything that was seeded a little bit later, or normal time, they look really good,” Stanford added.

Cautious optimism

Moisture conditions may have improved but farmers aren’t celebrating just yet.

Crops will still need more rain to make sure the harvest is a good one.

“A half inch would be kind of minimum but an inch, two inches would for sure do it,” said Vandervalk.

“But an inch would be good,” he added. “Getting an inch this time of year, it’s usually thunderstorms and that’s spotty,”

Outlook

Rain will likely be harder to come by for the rest of summer.

Forecasts show the Lethbridge region can expect dryer and warmer conditions for the rest of summer.

Sporadic rains could help to break up the heat.

“What we do see in our models for the month of August is a generally drier note for southern Alberta,” said Environment and Climate Change Canada scientist, Christy Climenhaga.

“That doesn’t mean that it is going to be dry every day,” she added. “But our monthly totals, we are picking up that drier-than-normal trend, which could mean some lower levels of precipitation for the rest of the month taking you to the end of summer,”