A crop is not made until it is in the bin, and the weather of the harvest weeks can make or break a season that the whole summer had promised. The plains grower, watching a ripe crop stand ready in the field, prays for a run of the finest autumn weather — dry, breezy days under a high blue sky that dry the grain and let the combines run from noon until the dew falls.

Praying for a Dry Run

The enemy is moisture. A rainy autumn can keep the combines out of the fields for days on end, sprout the standing grain, stain the beans, and drag the harvest dangerously toward the first snows. A crop caught by an early winter storm, still standing in the field, is a heartbreak the plains know too well. Every dry day in the harvest is a day banked against disaster.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• Dry, breezy autumn days let the combines run and dry the grain.
• A rainy harvest can sprout grain and delay the crop into winter.
• A crop caught by an early snowstorm is a serious loss.

When the weather cooperates, the harvest becomes a thing of joy — the bins filling, the trucks rolling, the year's work coming safely home. The almanac counts the harvest sky among the most consequential of the plains' weathers, for on it turns the reward of an entire year.