A straw bale that stays dry keeps its square edges and tight binding for the whole season. One that takes on water darkens, slumps, sheds constantly, and starts breaking down within a couple of weeks.
Same bale, same delivery. The difference is entirely in where it sits and what's underneath it.
Narrow the top if it's exposed
A bale lying flat presents a broad top face that collects everything falling on it. Tipped up onto a long narrow side, the top is a fraction of that width and sheds far better — the strings end up running vertically up the face, which is the easy way to check you've done it right.
One thing that isn't optional either way: never set a bale down on a cut end. Those are thousands of open stems standing upright, and against the ground they wick water straight up into the bale. Flat or tipped up, a cut end never touches the ground.
On a sheltered porch this hardly matters. In the open, it's worth the ten seconds.
Find the low spot first
Before anything goes down, look at where water goes on your porch and walkway.
The spot under the downspout. The corner where puddles form after a storm. The low point in the concrete where water sits for an hour after the rain stops. Those are the places a bale should never be, and identifying them takes one walk around after any rain.
Standing water is worse than falling water. A bale can shed a downpour; it can't shed sitting in a puddle for three days.
Raise it if it's not on a hard surface
On soil, grass, or mulch, moisture wicks up from the ground continuously whether or not it's raining.
A pallet or a pair of pavers underneath creates an air gap and solves it. The gap does not need to be large; an inch or two of clearance is enough to break the contact.
On a dry covered porch this is unnecessary. On a lawn it's the single most useful thing you can do.
Leave the sides breathing
A bale pressed flat against siding traps damp on that face and can't dry out.
A few inches of gap between bale and wall lets air move on all sides. Same for two bales set side by side — a small space between them dries far better than two faces pressed together.
After a soaking
Rain happens and a bale will get wet. What matters is whether it can dry afterward.
If a bale has taken a heavy soak, rotate it a quarter turn so the wet face is exposed to air and sun rather than pressed against the ground or the wall. Brush accumulated snow off the top rather than letting it melt slowly into the bale, because slow melt is worse than the storm was.
Check the binding. A bale that's swelled and settled will have slack strings, and slack strings mean the bale is on its way out.
Knowing when it's finished
The progression runs: darkened base, rounded edges, slack binding, smell, visible mold at ground contact.
Caught in the first two stages, raising the bale and improving airflow can still buy weeks. Past slack binding it's done, and leaving it in place mostly means staining whatever it's sitting on.
Season Removal takes bales in whatever condition they're in, which is one fewer thing to think about in November.