Drought conditions have expanded in the northeast corner of Iowa, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released on Thursday.
Iowa state climatologist Justin Glisan says D1, or moderate drought, was mostly in western and central Iowa last week. Now, that level of drought intensity has moved into a good portion of northeast Iowa.
?We also saw an expansion of D2, about a one county depth east and somewhat north, from the D3 extreme drought bullseye ?which we saw no change in,? Glisan said in an ISU Extension drought webinar on Thursday. ?We didn?t degrade that any and we didn?t expand it any. In that bullseye, wherever we have coop stations they were seeing anywhere from 8-12 inches below average precipitation going out six months.?
The Drought Monitor showed D0 ? or abnormal dryness ? increased across most of southern Iowa. Glisan says short term precipitation outlooks hint at elevated chances of wetter conditions through the end of the month.
?We still consider this drought short term below six months,? Glisan said. ?But we can see through the Midwest that we are seeing dryness expand, especially into eastern Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and even a little bit in Illinois. The storm track has been situated further south across Missouri and into Ohio. They have actually seen some improvement in the Drought Monitor.?
According to Dennis Todey, director of USDA?s Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa is currently experiencing its largest D3 extreme drought area since April of 2013. The D3 area impacts 13 counties: Adair, Audubon, Boone, Calhoun, Carroll, Cass, Crawford, Dallas, Greene, Guthrie, Sac, Shelby, and Webster.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor can be found here.
