Jill Beyer lost her entire carrot crop to this year’s rain. The last 3 inches of precipitation were the worst, the Winnebago farmer said. Some tugs at the carrots brought up vegetables rotted brown.

Drive around, especially near the Wisconsin line, and you may find farm fields still flooded after recent rains. Accustomed to dealing with changing weather, farmers are coping. Some say they’d rather deal with too much rain rather than not enough. But it’s not the most pleasant of circumstances, especially because lower-than-normal temperatures are keeping the ground wet.

“When it rains, our ground stays wet for quite a while,” said Beyer, the owner of Harrison Market Gardens. “You can’t weed mud. It has been so wet, that you’d walk along and you’d leave your boot in the mud.”

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service confirm that there’s been more rain than usual. Between June 1 and Sunday, 10.5 inches of rain fell at the Chicago Rockford International Airport. That’s well above the average precipitation of 7.14 inches typical of that span. A total of 20.47 inches of precipitation had fallen through Sunday, slightly more than the norm of 19.61 inches. Last year was wetter, though, with 28.17 inches by this time in 2013.

Below-normal temperatures aren’t helping either. The average for the month so far has been 68.5 degrees, compared with the norm of 73.8 degrees.

Source - http://www.freshplaza.com/