Alberta Planting Near Complete; Moisture Conditions Deteriorate

Jun 05, 2023

Planting has essentially wrapped up in Alberta, but most of the province could now use a good rain.

The latest weekly crop report on Friday pegged the seeding of all crops at 97% complete as of Tuesday. However, surface soil moisture is now rated 65% poor to fair, an increase of 18 points on the week, while the good to excellent rating dropped to 34% from 52% a week earlier. The Peace is the only region that had surface soil moisture rated above 50% good to excellent, at 71%.

Provincially, emergence is ahead of the five-year average at 76% for all crops. Dry peas (90%) and spring wheat (86%) are furthest along in total emergence for major crops. Oats (67% emerged) and canola (67% emerged) are both ahead of their five-year averages of 44% and 53%, respectively. Emergence in the South, Central and North East Regions are only slightly ahead of their five-year averages, whereas the North West and Peace Region are 32 and 36 points ahead of their five-year averages, respectively.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.