Northwest Iowa — The deluge of rain that some of northwest Iowa got in early August caused improvement in the drought situation in a swath of northwest Iowa. But, according to the latest Drought Monitor report, that improvement has evaporated.
The swath of what was called “abnormally dry” land started along the Big Sioux north of Sioux City and extended north a little north of Hawarden — then extended northeast, covering most of northern O’Brien County and just barely the city of Sheldon, and then covering most of eastern Osceola County. It then continued east, covering most of the top tier of counties and some of the next tier down until Kossuth County. But all that is gone now, and the whole area is again in the “moderate drought” category.
Still, it could be worse, and IS worse in other parts of Iowa, according to Tim Hall of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Northeast Iowa has the most counties in extreme or severe drought conditions. Both of those designations increased statewide last week with nearly 26 percent of the state in extreme drought and almost 73 percent in severe drought. Hall says the water levels in some rivers and streams are much lower than normal for this time of year.
He says flows tend to be low this time of year anyway, and being 10 percent below normal really indicates how little rainfall we’ve had. Hall says water systems that pull from rivers have one thing in their favor.
But Hall says there is a lot of concern about when we might get some rain to replenish the dry areas.
He says the short term forecast doesn’t call for much precipitation to help with the problem.
