Washington State University’s dryland research station in Lind received more than three times the average amount of rain in May, prompting a researcher there to predict higher yields for the region’s wheat crop this year.

With 2.53 inches of rain, May was the third-wettest ever recorded at the station, director Bill Schillinger said. The 100-year average for precipitation at the station in May is 0.80 inches.

“Rain in the month of May and the first two weeks of June (are) the most important for any time period for grain yield potential of both winter wheat and spring wheat,” Schillinger told the Capital Press. “We know this for certain. So, farmers really caught a break this year. It was looking bleak up through April because of drought.”

Schillinger expects wheat yields to be “substantially” above average, with some fields doing “exceptionally well.”

“May was sort of our salvation,” he said. “Cool temps, region-wide rain. … We lucked out.”

In the last 100 years, the station has averaged 9.63 inches a year, Schillinger said. Precipitation is what falls as snow and rain, he said.

This crop year, through June 26, the station had 10.40 inches.

According to station records, the wettest year on record was 1948, with 22.71 inches of precipitation.