IARN — Extreme drought conditions have remerged in parts of Iowa.
Iowa State Climatologist Dr. Justin Glisan explains that D3 Extreme Drought was reported in this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor for the counties of Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Palo Alto, Kossuth, Cerro Gordo, Floyd, Chickasaw, Wright, Franklin, Butler, Bremer, Hardin, Grundy, Black Hawk, and Marshall.
“Now we have about 7 percent of the state covered in that D3 category,” said Glisan. “The reason why we have introduced D3 in these two parts of the state is we’ve seen precipitation deficits over the last 6 to 8 months really stack up – 8 to 12 inches below normal. These parts of the state have missed out on the wider spread rainfalls that much of the other parts of the state have seen.”
While drought conditions worsened week-to-week in Iowa, Glisan says the state’s corn and soybean crops have held steady.
“For as dry as it’s been in certain parts of the state, corn and beans are looking pretty good – that is if they made it out of hail damage or the tornado outbreak we had on July 14th,” said Glisan. “But overall, I’ve been pleasantly surprised in terms of how dry we were coming into the growing season with much of those subsoil profiles diminished down below the 20th percentile.”
Glisan says the 7-day precipitation outlook is looking promising.
“It’s been trending wetter over the last several iterations of the forecast,” said Glisan. “This morning when the Quantitative Precipitation Forecast was released, basically about an inch or above for most of the state and then in the drier parts of the state, the possibility of one and a half to two inches-plus if we get thunderstorms that set up. I will take this forecast over a drier signal any day.”
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor can be viewed here.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network
