Checking U.S. and Europe/Western Russia Soil Moisture and Rainfall Pattern

Climate Impact Company Early AG Market ALERT

Issued: Wednesday May 14, 2025

Highlight: Checking U.S. and Europe/Western Russia soil moisture and rainfall.

Fig. 1-3: The U.S. daily soil moisture anomaly observations, the May change so far, and ECM ENS 15-day precipitation anomaly forecast for the U.S. AG Belt.

Discussion: Widely varying soil moisture conditions have developed during late meteorological spring across the U.S., particularly the U.S. AG Belt. Large dry-to-drought soil moisture regions exist across the Southwest U.S., Western U.S. Corn Belt, and in the Mid-Atlantic region plus parts of Florida (Fig. 1). During May so far, the Western U.S. Corn Belt is drying while areas to the south including the southern Great Plains to the Gulf States are much wetter (Fig. 2). The U.S. AG Belt 15-day rainfall anomaly forecast utilizing the ECM ENS indicates a much wetter scenario ahead across the northern Great Plains with heavy rain also likely centered on the southern Missouri Valley (Fig. 3). Mostly drier than normal weather is projected for the Ohio Valley and western Great Plains. The summer 2025 outlook promotes drought risk in the central/north-central Great Plains. However, a firm footing on a drought trend is not yet indicated due to patchy dry/wet soil regions and a changeable precipitation pattern.

In Europe, wet weather has pushed across Romania and Ukraine in recent days (Fig. 4) sufficient to partially erode drought (Fig. 5). The strongest drought signature remains over Southwest Russia, near and east of Poland, and recently in western France. The ECM ENS 15-day outlook indicates a persistent upper trough aligning a wet weather pattern from Southern Europe to Western Russia including Ukraine (Fig. 6). U.K. to Germany is dry. Unusually cool weather across Eastern Europe and Western Russia for the remainder of May!

Fig. 4-6: The Europe 7-day percent of normal rainfall observations, daily soil moisture analysis, and ECM ENS 15-day percent of normal rainfall forecast.