Farmers know how to pray for rain and how to pray for rain to go away, too.
And prayers were answered this week when -- with crops in the field -- Hurricane Ida took an eastern track away from the Mississippi Delta.
The gage at Fletcher Field, north of Clarksdale recorded a little over two-inches from the storm with sustained winds averaging 18- to 23-mph and a 33-mph gust recorded at 12:35 a.m. Aug. 31.
Rain soaked standing corn, but producers hope a few days of sunny weather and a breeze will dry it out.
The real concern was rice that had drooping heads that could have been flattened to the ground with significant wind or heavy rain.
Soybeans were not really hurt by the rain and cotton was not quite at the maturity level to suffer greatly.
The weather also varied around the county with some areas getting more rain and wind than others.
The National Weather Service out of Memphis initially issues a flash flood watch for Coahoma and surrounding counties on Saturday, but that forecast was scaled back as Hurricane Ida moved inland and quickly became a tropical storm.
The storm had also been given a track up the Mississippi River, but veered to the east on Sunday and began breaking up Monday. The Sun was shining in Clarksdale Tuesday.
The National Weather Service (NWS) had initially predicted Ida would hit near New Orleans and produce local rain of three- to six-inches over Saturday, Sunday and Monday. NWS had also predicted wind gusts of up to 30-mph locally.
There were individual cases of power outages, but no area outages reported from this storm. No major accidents or flooding was reported.
As expected, the storm exited the northeast corner of the state Tuesday morning, with cloudy skies giving way to clear skies Tuesday night. The Sun is expected to shine Wednesday and no significant rain is predicted through Labor Day.
