the usda-ars is currently developing a new wind erosion prediction system (weps) to estimate wind-induced soil erosion on a daily basis. this new system will estimate several soil crust-related properties not used in previous wind erosion prediction methods. this study was conducted to determine the effects of selected temporally varying surface soil properties and cumulative rainfall on soil crust-related properties used in weps. specifically, crust-related properties including percent aggregate cover, crust cover, loose erodible soil material cover (lemc), loose erodible soil material mass (lemm), and plant residue percent cover were measured on fallow, cotton and sorghum fields and related to random roughness, dry aggregate size, and cumulative precipitation. aggregate cover was not significantly (p $less than equivalent to$ 0.05) related to dry aggregate size. crust cover percentage was negatively related to random roughness and positively related to cumulative precipitation crust cover was not significantly (p $less than equivalent to$ 0.05) related to dry aggregate size. loose erodible material cover percentage was positively related to dry aggregate size and cumulative precipitation. loose erodible material mass was positively related for one soil and negatively related for another soil to dry aggregate size, and negatively related to cumulative precipitation neither loose erodible material cover nor mass was related to random roughness. (edited author abstract) 13 refs