photo by: Jason Kendall

The more than half of foot of rain that fell on Lawrence in the past month was too much of a good thing for area farms, like this one northeast of Lawrence, where corn waited to dry out in standing water Wednesday.

The more than half a foot of rain that fell on Lawrence in the past month was too much of a good thing for area farmers.

Brian Barjenbruch, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, said the rain was badly needed as northeast Kansas was heading into a drought after a very dry winter and early spring. Even with the 6.5 inches of rain recorded in Lawrence from April 16 through noon Tuesday, the city’s total of 9.8 inches on the year is 1.5 inches less than normal, he said.

The first rains were welcome by Douglas County farmers, said Roberta Wyckoff, Douglas County Extension agriculture agent. The timing was good, too, as the first April showers arrived after farmers had planted this year’s corn crop.

“The first couple of rains were good for the corn that was just planted,” Wyckoff said. “The hard rains and hail were not so good.”

The 6-plus inches of rain have also replenished ponds and benefited pastures as farmers get ready to turn livestock loose for summer grazing, Wyckoff said. Farmers are now hoping for enough rain-free days to allow the young corn plants’ roots to become better established and dry out fields, she said, which would allow farmers to plant their soybean crops. Some farmers also want to plant more soybeans in the places where the corn crop was washed away or underwater too long, she said.

The wet weather and high humidity did encourage a number of diseases in winter wheat, most noticeably leaf rust, Wyckoff said. It’s too early to tell just what that would mean when farmers start cutting wheat next month, but there remained the potential for a good harvest, Wyckoff said.

Although there were sporadic areas of hail and high winds in Douglas County, the area did avoid the more severe weather that visited other regions of northeast Kansas in the past month, Barjenbruch said.

photo by: Jason Kendall

The swimming beach on the northeast side of Clinton Lake State Park was completely submerged at sunset Saturday after heavy rains hit the area last week.

With the recent wet spell, Clinton Lake’s elevation at 8 a.m. Wednesday was about six feet above its normal level, said Samantha Jones, park manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Clinton Lake. The lake was still rising, she said, but not as rapidly with the end of the rain Tuesday.

Clinton Lake is part of the Corps of Engineers watershed management system for the Missouri River, Jones said. Because of the current level of that river, Clinton is one of the dams in the system not currently releasing water, she said. Should the reservoir level rise another foot, Clinton would be at its “surveillance level,” which would bump it up in priority to release water, she said.

Currently, some of the Bloomington East swimming beach the Corps of Engineers manages is underwater, but there are areas still accessible, Jones said.

The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks public beach is currently underwater, said Bruce Husman, acting park manager at Clinton State Park.

There is some hope for farmers and others hoping the rain will go away, Barjenbruch said. There is one more chance of light rain through the weekend, and dry days are predicted to outnumber wet days next week, he said.

That trend might not last. More rain is predicted for Lawrence in the next two weeks, and there is a likelihood for better than average precipitation in the next 90 days, Barjenbruch said.