Despite warm weather since the beginning of July, the average temperature declined since the first few days of the month when it averaged 27.0 degrees Celsius. The average has now dropped to 23.5 C while the normal for the whole month is 21.1 C. There have been four days with a daytime high over 30 C so far in July.
In lockstep with the above-average temperature, the corn heat unit (CHU) count continued to accumulate nicely, with 309 CHU for the first 12 days of the month; the normal for July is 799 CHU so July is running about normal. The total CHUs since the start on May 16 has now reached 1349 CHU, approximately 40 per cent of normal.
There was 18 millimetres of rain in the last week, bringing the month total to 22 mm which is about half of normal. Despite the lack of rain, the crops are looking good with the warm temperatures and feeding off the leftover moisture from June.
The forecast for the remainder of July is for average temperatures during the day with warmer-than-average nights, but with a spike of a few days above 30 C in the coming week. Precipitation will be limited, with only a few days in the third week of the month forecast for showers.