Heavy rain triggered flooding problems across Iowa, Illinois Minnesota and Ohio last week and over the weekend, creating headaches for farmers trying to get into the fields to harvest. With the deluge of rainfall hitting key areas of the Corn Belt, is this a sign harvest 2026 could be trademarked by wet weather and delays? BAM Weather says it will be a tale of two harvest stories this year: harvest delays in the West with more favorable conditions in the East.
It’s been a soggy September so far. The Iowa Mesonet shows areas of eastern Iowa, northeast Indiana, and central Ohio have already recorded their wettest September to date on record, with several crop reporting districts ranking in the top 10 wettest on record for the month so far. A pocket stretching across southeast Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin, northwest Illinois, and northeast Iowa has picked up more than 7 inches of rain.
An Ag Belt Divided and El Niño’s Impact
Griffin says when you look at the intense rainfall amounts over the past week, the “ring of fire” pattern is driving those heaviest totals.
“I think as we head deeper into harvest, it’ll be a bit of an Ag Belt divided. The Western Ag Belt’s gonna have some issues, the Eastern Ag Belt I think starts to get more and more favorable windows upcoming,” says Matt Griffin, Senior Vice President of Meteorology at BAM Weather.
Looking at precipitation totals before this past weekend’s rains, the heaviest bands included three-plus inches of rainfall stretched from near I-80 in eastern Nebraska into Iowa, just north of I-70 into Kansas, and across northern Missouri. Portions of northern Illinois, northern Indiana, and northeastern Indiana into northwestern Ohio picked up as much as 7.5 inches…