Moisture Update - August 8, 2024

Maps 1-3: During the last week of July, the weather cooled down and a significant rainfall event swept across a large portion of the province, affecting the central parts of Alberta’s northern Boreal Forest (Map 1). Over the past week, a second bout of rain brought moisture to many lands, unfortunately not those that largely missed out on the late July rains (Map 2). With this rain, roughly 40% of our agricultural lands received at least 20 mm of rain, with the greatest amounts, upwards of 40 mm, being experienced along the foothills between the Yellowhead Highway, as far south as Fort Macleod. In some areas, the rain fell during intense thunderstorms that brought heavy rain and damaging hail.

In aggregate over the past 14 days, a good portion of our agricultural lands have received at least 30 mm of rain, with large parts of the North West and Eastern Peace regions receiving well over 60 mm (Map 3). However, not all areas received rain following the unseasonably hot and dry July weather. Much of southern Alberta remained dry, with some areas receiving less than 10 mm, along with some other widely scattered areas in the Central, North East, and Peace regions. As a result, unfavourably dry conditions continue to persist across portions of our agricultural lands.

Maps 4 & 5: Even with the recent rains, large parts of the North East, Central, Southern, and Northern Peace Regions have been drier than normal (Map 4), with many areas facing at least once in 6 to 12 year lows over the past 30-days. Some areas are drier still, experiencing once in 12 to 25 year lows, but these are relatively small, isolated pockets. Looking back over the last 60-days, the longer-term dry spell has affected much of the North East, North West, western-half of the Central Region, and the northern and central-west Peace Region (Map 5). The July 30, 2024 Crop Report comments on “variable conditions” with respect to crop growth, which is reflected in the high degree of variability shown on these maps. Despite this, the report indicates “most regions are currently expecting an average crop yield”.

Maps 6 & 7: Current soil moisture reserves are highly variable (Map 6), but generally much improved over conditions that existed prior to the last two weeks, as estimated on July 23, 2024 (Map 7). On Map 6, currently at least once in 25-year lows exist in and around Red Deer, and the central-west and the extreme northern portions of the Peace Region. Large parts of the North West, North East, and western portions of the Central Region experienced once in 6 to 12-year lows, along with parts of the central-west and northern Peace Region. In contrast, each of the four regions has areas of at least near normal soil moisture, with many widely scattered areas with above average reserves for this time of year. Notably, parts of the Southern Region and the Special Areas are above normal for this time of year, although it’s normally very dry in these parts of the province. Regardless, this is encouraging in these areas as we head into fall.