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RAINS RETURN, BUT NOT FOR LONG, WEATHER SERVICE SAYS

By Wes Clement/ OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Friday, October 23, 2009 12:48 AM CDT

A short period of dry weather was brought to an end Thursday as familiar rains returned.

The National Weather Service at North Little Rock reported 1.58 inches of rain fell in the Pine Bluff area Thursday as of late afternoon bringing the October rainfall total to date to about 9.3 inches and the annual total to date to 61 inches.

According to the NWS website, the Pine Bluff area received nearly 52 inches of rain for the year by Oct. 22 last year.

Pine Bluff and most of Southeast Arkansas were under a flash flood watch Thursday as heavy rain was expected during the evening.

Dry weather is expected until Sunday night.

The rainy weather has created havoc for farmers throughout the state. After weeks of waiting on the rain to stop, Arkansas cotton growers were recently in the fields harvesting what they could of the state’s crop, according to the Cooperative Extension Service, part of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service said that for the week ending Oct. 18, only 8 percent of the cotton crop had been harvested, compared with 52 percent at this time last year.

Arkansas growers planted 520,000 acres of cotton this year, down from 620,000 last year. The 2008 crop was valued at nearly $349 million dollars.

Help for farmers may be on the way, the governor’s office said Thursday. Farmers who have suffered recent crop damage may already be eligible for federal assistance under a disaster declaration that has been in place since Gov. Mike Beebe requested it early this summer.

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