Weather Expert Eric Snodgrass Predicts Dry Growing Season for South Dakota

By Lura Roti

In Farm and Ranch Country, weather gets a lot of attention. And Eric Snodgrass stands out among the climate experts farmers and ranchers follow, explained Miller rancher Andrew Canham.

“Eric explains the weather in a way that I can understand,” Canham said.

Tabor farmer, Eileen Sestak agreed. “Eric taught us about the different facets of the weather – what impacts the weather – things you don’t hear about on the 6 o’clock news.”

Eileen and her husband, Terry say they are acutely tuned into the weather during haying season. “The heat and humidity affect haying and baling quite a bit. You have to time things just right,” Eileen said.

Canham and the Sestak’s were among a large crowd of family farmers and ranchers who got to hear from Snodgrass during the 109^th South Dakota Farmers Union State Convention held in Huron Dec. 11 and 12.

Ocean atmosphere indicates dry growing season

The science behind the weather is complicated. But when Snodgrass explains the science, he does it in such a way that most can understand.

A previous professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois, Snodgrass’ talk was filled with graphs and animated meteorological data. But he also included personal stories that helped listeners wrap their heads around the data and the factors that impact weather and weather forecasting.

“The teacher who first got me interested in becoming a meteorologist told me, ‘The script of the atmosphere’s behavior is written on the ocean’s surface. Figure that out and you can figure out the future weather patterns. And that was the day became a weather nerd.’”

Based on what the ocean’s atmosphere is doing, Snodgrass predicts a dry growing season.

Snodgrass went on to explain: “Every single weather system that we deal with here in the Northern Plains isn’t born here. It comes from some other source region. Usually that’s either the Indian Ocean north of the Himalayan Mountains, or Siberia. That’s where your weather systems are born. They go over the Rocky Mountains and they’re invigorated. Why? The Rocky Mountains stick up there several 1000 feet into the sky and stir things up and give us fresh weather that then goes across the country, decays over the northeast, dies in the North Atlantic, and then just has a nice long funeral in a place called England. That’s why the worst weather in the world is in the UK. Then it’s reinvigorated across Asia and comes back to us.”

And Snodgrass went on to say, that even though the moisture outlook is not favorable, even the best weather models in the world are only accurate 50 percent of the time.

He also shared scientifically why the Midwestern U.S. is the best place in the world to grow crops – and hail storms.

“Now, this is what’s amazing about the United States. If you want to just look geographically at a place in the world that was designed to grow crops, it is the Midwestern United States. Why? Because we have a mountain chain that runs here called the Appalachian Mountains. They’re nothing. They’re little hills. You got big ones that run over here called the Rockies. And in the middle, there is no east/west running mountain chain. Do you understand that there’s only us and Argentina on the whole planet that are not impacted by east/west running mountain chains? Think about Europe, think about Russia, think about the Himalayas, China, they all have big east /west running mountains. We don’t. Which means moisture from there can go all the way to the Canadian Shield. And it’s enough. We usually get enough inches of moisture that we can do dryland farming. A lot of it comes in the middle of summer, big summer thunderstorms like this. And when that big Bermuda high is pumping all of that moisture there, it gets over the top of really hot ground and over hot ground. Guess what that air does? Shoots up in the atmosphere violently. Carries with it all that moisture, which then condenses and gives us some of the biggest and baddest thunderstorms on the planet.”

After Snodgrass’ talk, Terry Sestak said that although it was informative, the information Snodgrass shared does not change his 2025 growing season decisions.

“Eric admitted that even the best weather models are only correct 50 percent of the time,” Terry said. “As farmers we need to be optimistic.”

Sestak’s response is exactly what Snodgrass was hoping for. “You are not allowed to make any strategic decisions about your financial well-being,” Snodgrass said. “You bet the farm on the forecast, you’re going to lose.”