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Statewide Iowa — The updated Iowa Drought Monitor shows 97 percent of the state is in drought or near-drought conditions.
Much of the state is in severe or extreme drought. The area of extreme drought in eastern Iowa goes from the border with Minnesota to the Missouri border. It includes the northeast Iowa cities of Cresco, Waterloo, and Cedar Rapids and the areas around Mount Pleasant, Bloomfield, and Ottumwa in southeast Iowa. The area of exceptional drought also sweeps through central Iowa and over to Aububon and Cass Counties in western Iowa.
There are only three areas of the state that aren’t in some level of drought or exceptionally dry conditions. One area is in the eastern edges of Jackson, Clinton and Scott Counties that abut the Mississippi River. The others are in northwest Iowa in the parts of Plymouth and Woodbury Counties that border the Missouri River as well as where the four corners of Cherokee, O’Brien, Clay and Buena Vista Counties meet.
Most of our area is in the category where dry conditions are just barely an issue — D0, or “abnormally dry.” As mentioned, far-southeastern O’Brien County is normal. The northwest half of Lyon County and the northwest corner of Sioux County are a little drier at D1, or “moderate drought.”
