Cold weather, snowfall, slow harvest progress further

Alberta crop conditions as of October 2, 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes The month of September has been exceptionally cold across the province and, for many areas, unusually wet. Although cool damp weather conditions have halted harvest operations in many areas, this has led to normal precipitation accumulations for most areas of the province. Adding to this was the large snowfall event in the southern and western […] Read more


It was the second, heavier September snowstorm that flattened big chunks of his wheat fields, said Jason Lenz.

It was more Standstill than September for many

Many weren’t able to ‘turn a wheel’ during what should be the golden days of autumn

Reading Time: 4 minutes It was a September that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. “Harvest is at a standstill and it’s been that way for about three weeks now,” Alberta Wheat chair Kevin Bender said as the month came to a close. “For the most part, guys haven’t been able to turn a wheel yet.” Bender, […] Read more

This photo and the one on the front page were taken at Crooked Lake Farm in the third week of September.:

Opinion: A cheerful wave or sympathetic ear this harvest season really does help

A little empathy will be much appreciated during this year’s long and difficult harvest

Reading Time: 2 minutes Please don’t read this as a complaint; this isn’t meant to be a complaint. With the recent snows in Alberta over the past two weeks, there are a lot of farmers on edge. So many farmers haven’t even turned a wheel in their fields, or if they have, they are either drying their grain or […] Read more





Prairie harvest window possible next week

Prairie harvest window possible next week

CNS Canada — Cold and wet conditions on the Prairies are expected to clear up over the next week, allowing a window of opportunity for harvest, though the size of that window remains to be seen. “Western and northern parts of Alberta have some serious issues,” said Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. in Kansas […] Read more

This map shows the total amount of precipitation that has fallen across the Prairies so far this winter (Nov. 1 to March 16). You can see that the wettest regions have been across southern Manitoba and into southeastern Saskatchewan along with extreme western Alberta. The driest regions were found north of Edmonton, southwards to east-central Alberta, and then eastwards towards Regina.

Springtime can be the ‘right time’ for really big snowstorms

When a buildup of warm, moist air from the south collides with 
cold arctic air, your snowblower can get a real workout

Reading Time: 3 minutes With spring officially here, the last thing most people want to hear about is snow. But the way this winter and spring have been going, who knows? Springtime across the Prairies tends to bring some of the biggest snowfalls of the year. Several years ago I dug into this topic, but I figured it was time […] Read more


Dry winter is just what’s needed

Dry winter is just what’s needed

Reading Time: < 1 minute The so-far dry winter in Alberta is raising hopes that farmers will be able to get onto their fields early in order to deal with more than one million acres of unharvested crops. As of Jan. 31, snowpack accumulations were generally below normal in most areas (save for southern Alberta, where little to no snow […] Read more