Wisconsin Farmers Welcome Weekend Rain

Wisconsin farmers are welcoming Friday’s rain following several weeks of hot, dry weather.

Until Friday, only 0.7 of an inch of rain had fallen in central Wisconsin in July, said Mike Breunling, meteorologist for WAOW-TV in Wausau.

“It’s very good for farmers, the rain that’s coming. In fact, it’s good for homeowners and gardeners, because our rain totals, our precipitation totals so far for the year have been very inconsistent,” Breunling said.

The northern half of the state got a late start on the growing season because of heavy snowfall in April. The snowmelt was followed by heavy rain and flooding in mid-June, but it has been hot and largely dry since then.

Breunling said by mid-afternoon Friday, rain totals ranged from about three-quarters of an inch in Rhinelander, to an inch in Wausau, to as much as three inches in parts of southern Wisconsin.

Don Radtke, vice president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, said it was good the rain was not falling quickly.

“We did need the rain. It was starting to get dry out there,” Radtke said. “The way the rain’s been coming, it’s been kind of a nice, slow rain all day, not a deluge of three or four inches in a matter of an hour or so, so the majority of this is soaking in and it’s not running off.”

Radtke said it comes at a good time for the state’s corn crop, which is beginning to pollinate.

“That’s a stressful time of the year in the growing season, so the moisture does help,” Radtke said.