Champaign, Illinois
Mowing
When you can next cut it, and the best slot this weekend.
Best weekend slot
Monday 10am–8pm
Verdict: Good
no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
Next mow
Tomorrow 8am–10am
Verdict: Good
growing slowly — growth potential 0.27
The next 10 days
Column height is how mowable the day is; the lighter band is the best stretch within it. The line is soil temperature at 6cm. It crosses the seeding threshold inside this forecast.
12.5°C — seeding
Soil at 6cm 26.3°C cooling to 0.0°C
Wednesday 2 September: Not worth it. No — growing slowly, growth potential 0.29.
Wednesday 2 SeptemberConfident
No — growing slowly, growth potential 0.29.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass drydried off since a shower 5 hours ago
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.29
- Poor:Temperature
- Heat stress27°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light5 km/h
Limiting factor:growth
Thursday 3 September: Good. 8am–10am — growing slowly — growth potential 0.27
Thursday 3 September · 8am–10amConfident
8am–10am — growing slowly — growth potential 0.27
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.27
- Poor:Temperature
- Cool23°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light10 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:growth
Friday 4 September: Good. 8am–9am — growing slowly — growth potential 0.24
Friday 4 September · 8am–9amConfident
8am–9am — growing slowly — growth potential 0.24
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.24
- Poor:Temperature
- Cool25°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light11 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:growth
Saturday 5 September: Good. 8am–10am — growing slowly — growth potential 0.31
Saturday 5 September · 8am–10amConfident
8am–10am — growing slowly — growth potential 0.31
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Marginal:Growth
- Growing slowlygrowth potential 0.31
- Poor:Temperature
- Cool24°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light12 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:growth
Sunday 6 September: Good. 10am–8pm — no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
Sunday 6 September · 10am–8pmReasonably confident
10am–8pm — no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.76
- Marginal:Temperature
- Temperature21°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light16 km/h
- Sociable hours
- Fine by the neighboursstarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:none
Monday 7 September: Good. 10am–8pm — no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
Monday 7 September · 10am–8pmReasonably confident
10am–8pm — no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.97
- Good:Temperature
- Temperature15°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light13 km/h
- Sociable hours
- Fine by the neighboursstarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:none
Tuesday 8 September: Good. 8am–11am — no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
Tuesday 8 September · 8am–11amReasonably confident
8am–11am — no rain since Wednesday, ground firm
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.68
- Poor:Temperature
- Temperature19°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light14 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:none
Wednesday 9 September: Good. 8am–10am — barely growing — growth potential 0.19
Wednesday 9 September · 8am–10amReasonably confident
8am–10am — barely growing — growth potential 0.19
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Poor:Growth
- Barely growinggrowth potential 0.19
- Poor:Temperature
- Cool25°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light18 km/h
- Sociable hours
- A bit early or late, but finestarts when it stops being antisocial
Limiting factor:growth
Thursday 10 September: Not worth it. No — ground frozen.
Thursday 10 SeptemberLow confidence this far out
No — ground frozen.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryrain earlier today
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm0mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing wellgrowth potential 0.56
- Marginal:Temperature
- Temperature23°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light14 km/h
Limiting factor:none
Friday 11 September: Not worth it. No — ground frozen.
Friday 11 SeptemberLow confidence this far out
No — ground frozen.
- Good:Grass wetness
- Grass dryno rain since Wednesday
- Good:Ground firmness
- Ground firm1mm rain over the last week
- Good:Growth
- Growing steadilygrowth potential 0.48
- Poor:Temperature
- Temperature21°C
- Good:Wind
- Wind light10 km/h
Limiting factor:none
Growth
How fast it is growing, and when it will need cutting again.
0.29Growing slowly
Growth potential, 0 to 1 — the turf-industry measure of how fast grass can grow at today's temperature and day length.
Putting on about 1.7mm a day. A lawn cut today would be ready for another in around 6 days.
Worked out from the PACE Turf growth potential model and day length —how and why.
What this means right now
Warning: Too warm to seed
Too warm to seed — the soil is heat-stressed. Wait for it to cool.
Warning: Heat stress
Wednesday 2 September gets hot enough to stress the sward. Mow early or late, and raise the height.
Seeding
Soil temperature at germination depth, and when the window opens.
Soil temperature
81°F27.0°C
at 6cm — germination depth
Cooling over the next 10 days.
Too warm to seed — the soil is heat-stressed. Wait for it to cool.
Cross-checks against an independent estimate from air temperature (26.6°C), which agrees to within 0.2°C.
Most cool-season lawns in the northern US and Canada are bluegrass, tall fescue, or a mix of the two. We assume that, and use12.5°C as the seeding threshold.
I know what grass I have
The differences are small. Ryegrass is the quickest off the mark; bluegrass is the slowest and wants the warmest soil. Everything else sits between.
| Species | Soil temp | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Perennial ryegrass | 8°C | 5–10 |
| Red / chewings fescue | 8–10°C | 10–14 |
| Tall fescuelikely yours | 10–12°C | 10–14 |
| Browntop bentColonial bentgrass | 10–12°C | 14–21 |
| Smooth-stalked meadow grassKentucky bluegrasslikely yours | 12–13°C | 14–28 |
Feeding
Why timing decides whether a feed does anything at all.
Coming in the app
Grass takes up nitrogen when it is growing. Feed a lawn that has stopped and most of it washes past the roots — which is why timing beats product choice.
Right now this lawn is not growing fast enough to make much use of a feed.
The app will work out the actual feeding windows for your lawn — along with weed control, scarifying and moss treatment — and tell you when they open without you having to check.
Champaign, Illinois in detail
Soil temperature at 6cm in Champaign, Illinois is currently 27.0°C, and falling about 26.4°C over the next 10 days. That depth matters because it is where grass seed sits and where roots start working, and it lags air temperature by days — which is why a warm afternoon here tells you very little on its own.
Lawns in this area are typically Kentucky bluegrass with tall fescue, the usual mix for cool-season lawns at this latitude. That blend needs the soil to hold above 12.5°C before seed germinates reliably. Too warm to seed — the soil is heat-stressed. Wait for it to cool.
7 of the next 10 days are good mowing days. The best weekend slot right now is Monday 10am–8pm, on the basis that no rain since Wednesday, ground firm.
The next recommended window in Champaign opens at 8am on Thursday 3 September, because anything earlier is the hour your neighbours will remember. Underfoot, the ground reads as firm after 0mm rain over the last week.
Forecast from Open-Meteo, refreshed hourly. Soil temperature is modelled, not measured — how that works and where the thresholds come from.