Recent Eastern SoDak Rains

[andyperry07]

Hello,

Native of South Dakota who currently lives in Wyoming. Quick question and looking for input the area I hunt got up to 1.5 inches of rain (not sure about hail) in just a couple of hours on the 17th....any input on how much you think this will affect the hatch/survival of chicks?

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[TimJ]

Unless you know someone who travels the roads in that area you just never know until the counts come out in late summer.

I think too much is made of heavy rains unless it is very heavy, like 4 inches + in a few hours. It has always seemed like once we get into the heat of summer nearly all the rain we get is heavy and fast. An inch or 2 in an hour is not that uncommon. Not many gentle rains in June, July and August. I'd rather have the rain in the long run.
I'm hoping that the nesting has been ahead of normal this year with the early spring. That might mitigate some of the damages recent rains could have caused.

On the upside the cover is growing thick and tall. I've also been seeing a pretty good hatch of grasshoppers in my garden.

Tim

 

[3car]

Hello,

Native of South Dakota who currently lives in Wyoming. Quick question and looking for input the area I hunt got up to 1.5 inches of rain (not sure about hail) in just a couple of hours on the 17th....any input on how much you think this will affect the hatch/survival of chicks?

Thanks in advance for any input.

There doing fine. We have had some heavy rains but not like 5 or 6 years ago. I had to boat to my house for 3 weeks. Now those are heavy rains!! Plus we haven't had much for really cold weather this spring. We had maybe 2 or 3 days were it got cold but that was real early before most of the pheasant nesting.

Should be a good year!

 

[Dakotazeb]

If anything, we could use some rain in the Watertown area. Seems it all goes around us. I remember some years back when we got some very hot and dry weather the first part of June and it had a negative impact on the hatch. So dry the eggs wouldn't hatch and if they did it was so hot and dry the chicks couldn't survive. Thankfully that hasn't been the case this year. While we are below normal for precipitation and it has been quite hot recently we have had high humidity and lots of morning dew. The hatch and chicks should be just fine.