You will have received some rain in the last week; you might not have received much depending on where you live. Showers swept across the area in the latter half of the week after a two-week dry spell when there was almost no precipitation, but some of those showers were a sprinkle and others were pretty heavy, leaving puddles on the ground.
Total precipitation for June to date at the Ormstown station is 14.8 millimetres. The Environment Canada station in Saint-Anicet is recording 12.8 mm, with 1.5 mm (that’s one point five!) in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and 7.5 mm in Saint-Clotilde. Regardless of where you are in the Valley, it’s dry, and even the rain and showers in the forecast won’t bring the moisture anywhere close to normal (80-90 mm per month in the summertime). So far, the dryness hasn’t had a huge impact on the crops; but those producing small fruits and vegetables will be working the irrigation systems overtime.
The average temperature is a bit on the cool side, but not so much that it won’t catch up by the end of the month. The average temperature now sits at 16.4 degrees Celsius, while the normal for the month is 18.6 C. The corn heat unit (CHU) count started on May 10 (based on the date when the last of our corn was planted), and it too is running behind schedule due to the cool weather. There are 182 CHU recorded so far in June, and normal would be approximately 218 CHU for this date. Normal for the entire month would be 655 CHU. Since the May 10 start date for the heat unit count, the total recorded is 522 CHU for the 2023 cropping season.
Good news: strawberries will be available by the end of the coming week!
