1934's extreme heat

The weather here at the farm has been decent the last week or so, a little windy for our liking, but overall not that bad. It rained some last Wednesday and Thursday, which we needed, and the forecast is for both more rain and highs in the upper 60s to lower 70s the next week or so.

One of the things I like to track is weather/climate variability since no year is ever really average, which makes gardening and farming exciting and, at times, frustrating. But as we sat here today with temperatures in the upper 60s (it felt cooler than that because of our good friend the wind), I took a look back at the historical weather data for the month of May around Oacoma (I'm not sure exactly where they're getting this historical data, but I won't worry about that for now). Check the record high temperatures for May 16-20 and May 27-31, and you'll quickly see why we're glad it's not 1934. You'll also get an idea of how hard it must have been to live happily, let alone grow any produce in the 1930s (specifically 1934) in central South Dakota. As Hal would say, "that's rugged," and it's only mid-May.

So tomorrow, we'll be trying hard to get the next starts in the ground, take care of everything we've already planted, and be thankful we aren't in the midst of a week with highs in the 100s because honestly, the Missouri River isn't warm enough yet to make an afternoon swim a very enjoyable break.