Significant rains occurred over central and southern Missouri and Illinois overnight and this morning. Early today, Lincoln, Illinois, reported 1.12", Bloomington, Illinois, reported .76", Springfield, Illinois, reported .87", and Jacksonville, Illinois, reported .36". The Spirit of St. Louis airport reported .48", with some .50" to 1.00+" rains reported over central Missouri and the Ozarks. Rolla, Missouri, reported .98", and Lebanon reported .73". 

This should be good news for immediate river prospects along the Mississippi from St. Louis southward as some runoff should help to stabilize river flows in the near future. Some weather models are indicating a potentially large storm system could be in the making for early next week with significant moisture amounts of 1" to 2+" for portions of central and southern Missouri as well as southern and maybe central Illinois.

These weather models are suggesting some light precipitation in the form of snow breaking out in the Texas panhandle by early next week and spreading across the Oklahoma Panhandle, northern Oklahoma, and much of Kansas. This area could receive .25" to .50" of moisture maybe as snow.

So a blanket of 2" to 4" of snow is not out of the question, though we would expect some of the snow to melt because of the warm ground. More rain is forecast to hit the Argentine grain belts possibly sustaining flood potential in the area and delaying the corn planting season in this region. Meanwhile, Australian wheat production is now estimated at 22.03 MT vs 22.54 last season, down 2% due to dry weather.

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