Though big dumps of rain aren’t part of the showery forecast for Thunder Bay and areas near the city this weekend, farmers will take every drop they can get as one of the driest and hottest summers in memory continues.
“I definitely wouldn’t mind a few more days of rain,” Jason Reid, who operates a beef farm on the city’s outskirts, said on Thursday.
Reid, who is also the Northwestern Ontario rep for the provincial soil and crop improvement association, said that while it’s too soon to be predicting big crop losses, “I really don’t think anyone’s going to have a bumper crop this year.”
Forage crops like hay are down to about half of what they were at this time last summer, Reid noted.
Still, the rain that did fall on Thunder Bay and nearby farms last week was a godsend, enough to allow farmers to hold out hope for a fair, if not stellar, harvest.
The rain “was very timely,” Reid said. “Farmers call that the million-dollar rain.”
Prior to that, there wasn’t much at all. According to Environment Canada, only 43 millimetres has fallen on Thunder Bay so far this month as of Thursday. In a normal July, the city receives nearly 90 mm.
“It is what it is,” said meteorologist Peter Kimbell, who noted that May and June were also drier than normal.
Kimbell said the shower activity being predicted for tonight and into Saturday is expected to be spotty and “not wide-spread.”
Bernie Kamphof, who operates a dairy and crop operation just outside Thunder Bay, said “the recent rains have been welcome, but we are still in a significant moisture deficit.”
Kamphof remains optimistic for local corn, noting those “plants have the ability to put roots down deep into the soil to seek water, mitigating the concern a bit.”
“The heat we have recently been experiencing has been very good for corn growth, and there is still time, assuming we get more timely rains, for a decent corn crop for 2026,” Kamphof said.
