Mother Nature knows no limits. She doesn’t care if you haven’t been in the field yet this spring or if you finally have the perfect stand of wheat. She will come barreling through and leave quicker than ice melting on a hot day. This spring’s damaging weather has been the perfect example of some of the uncontrollable aspects of being a farmer or rancher. Everything from hail, snow, tornadoes, and floods — farmers are putting up a fight for their crops this season, and it is still very early.
This spring has been one for the record books. Starting off early with major rains and flooding, now has added tornadoes, hail storms, and snow in late May across the country. California farmers, including cotton, cherry, and tomato farmers, have been battling hail and other devastating weather conditions to try and save their crops this past week.
Also this week, President Trump has increased the outreach for counties who declared emergency disasters for California, Florida, and Missouri — in addition to Nebraska and Iowa, which are still working through their flooding nightmares.
Rain and hail are not the only weather events causing worry for farmers. Across the country farmers and ranchers are dealing with a vengeful spring. Briena Grant from Southeast Wyoming received 8 inches of snow this week with a possibility of 12 inches total. Briena said just this past Saturday it was sunny and 60, which has now turned to wet, heavy snow.
In addition to hail, snow, and rain, the Southern Plains and Central states are dealing with damaging tornadoes. The Weather Channel reports more than 20 tornadoes have touched down in Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Kansas. These storms have also brought flash flooding, causing road closures and home evacuations. The video below shoes two funnel clouds form over Oklahoma.
Our hearts go out to all the hard working farmers and ranchers who take one day at a time and do everything they can to save their livestock and crops from the damaging weather.
