Dark and stormy days

It’s kind of like the story about the three bears; it’s just instead of too hot or too cold, it’s been too rainy or too dry for area farmers.
“A lot of places in this neck of the world got almost too much rain in June, and now all of a sudden, the tap went dry,” said ISU Extension Agronomist Terry Basol, who is based at the Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm near Nashua.
“We could use a nice, all-day rain, or at least some moisture — just not the pouring buckets kind, you know?”
Basol spoke early last week, and he and area farmers got half their wish. It rained; unfortunately, it was pretty much torrential downpours and worse yet, storms that moved through the area Saturday morning included some relatively large hail that damaged fields north of New Hampton, near the Homeland Energy Solutions ethanol plant west of Lawler and the extreme southwest corner of the county.
New Hampton hadn’t officially received any rainfall since Friday, June 26, until the heavens opened up Thursday around noon — officially dropping 1.6 inches of rain in a little more than an hour, but parts of Chickasaw County saw rainfall of almost 3 inches.
And we may get more on Tuesday as the National Weather Service says there is a chance for severe storms to develop Tuesday afternoon and evening. The storms could bring torrential downpours, large hail and strong winds.
— For more on this story, see the July 14 Tribune