Funded by the Illinois Soybean Checkoff Board
Speakers:
Dr. Connor Sible – Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ava Isaacs – Master’s Student in the Crop Physiology Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Whether you no-till, cover crop, double crop, or simply have higher yields today than a decade ago, you’ve got residue in your field.…
This week marked a quick transition to spring weather, just as the calendar turned over to March. Average temperatures this week ranged from the low 30s in northern Illinois to the high 40s in southern Illinois, between 1 and 6 degrees above average. Many places saw high temperatures reach into the 70s, including highs of 77 in Cahokia Heights and 74 in Springfield. This follows the month of February that was right around 1 degree warmer than normal statewide,…
Temperatures were all over the place this week, as is common for late February. Overall, average temperatures were 1 to 3 degrees warmer than average in northeast Illinois, and within 1 degree of average everywhere else. Some of the more impressive daytime high temperatures this week included 74 in Flora and 72 in Carbondale, while nighttime low temperatures dipped as far as 10 degrees in Galesburg and Quincy. February will likely end 2 to 3 degrees warmer than normal statewide in Illinois,…
USDA this morning released its Agricultural Outlook Forum acreage, yield and production numbers. These are widely anticipated by the trade and will be incorporated into the May WASDE (World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates) for corn and soybeans. The May WASDE includes the first official set of supply and demand tables for the new crop year.
USDA expects a slight decline in total acreage across wheat, corn, and soybean to 224 million (down ~1%). This number assumes a normal level of prevent plant acres and a modest expansion in the Conservation Reserve Program.…
The 36th annual All Day Ag Outlook will be held Tuesday, March 3, at the Beef House in Covington, Indiana. Join the WILLAg analysts and the farmdoc team for the day. We’ll cover the basics this year, including the markets, weather, weeds, trade, competition, land values, and crop insurance decisions. Click the registration link for complete details.
Doors open at 7:30 a.m. central / 8:30 a.m. eastern and include both coffee and rolls in the morning and a Beef House lunch.…
We had another cold and mostly dry week across the state. Average temperatures this week ranged from the low teens in northern Illinois to the high 20s in southern Illinois, between 8 and 18 degrees below average. A healthy snowpack in the southern half of the state helped push nighttime low temperatures well below 0, including lows of 7 below in Taylorville and 4 below in Jerseyville. The cold end to January pushed the month as a whole to be around 2 degrees below normal statewide.…
Winter has come back with a vengeance after a temporary pause. Average temperatures this week ranged from the low teens in northern Illinois to the mid-20s in southern Illinois, between 4 and 8 degrees below normal statewide. Nighttime low temperatures this week regularly dipped into the single digits, if not below zero, including -5 degrees in Rockford and -2 in Aurora. The wind was also a factor, pushing wind chill values close to -20 on a few days.…
The second week of the year brought a fleeting taste of spring, with average temperatures between the mid-30s to upper 40s; 8 to 12 degrees above normal. Some of the more impressive daytime high temperatures this week included 69 in Kaskaskia and 68 in Carbondale. January to date has been 7 to 12 degrees above normal statewide, and has been a top 10 warmest first half of January on record in most parts of the state.…
Happy new year! For the first summary of 2026, we’ll take a quick look back at December and the weather year of 2025, and then look forward to the rest of winter and a bit of spring.
December was around 2.5 degrees colder than normal statewide, which was quite a contrast to a very warm fall season. However, the average temperature in December doesn’t tell the story of its huge temperature swings. Much of the state had temperatures that were 20 to 30 degrees below normal in the middle of the month,…
Temperatures this week were all over the place, but the average temperatures ended 7 to 15 degrees colder than normal across the state. December to date has also been 7 to 14 degrees colder than normal, making it a top 10 coldest start to December on record in most places, including the 6th coldest on record in Bloomington-Normal.
by Trent Ford, State Climatologist
ISWS PRI University of Illinois
Extremely cold air settled in on Sunday night,…