Weekend Rainfall Has Little Effect On Drought

It was a cool and soggy weekend, but you won’t hear any complaints. Unfortunately, it may have come too late for many farmers who have already begun harvesting their corn crop. As of the recent drought monitor, the driest part of the state is still the southern portion. From Sioux Falls to Winner, farmers are seeing one of the most extreme droughts they’ve seen since the Dust Bowl.

Of course, the entire state is experiencing drought conditions, and we welcomed all the rain we could get out of this system. All of the showers have moved out of the region, but we did receive a good bit. Here is a look at the rainfall totals accumulated over the weekend.

Notice, though, that the majority of the rain fell over regions that were not in the extreme drought; leaving much of the areas in an extreme drought scraping the bottom of the bucket. It’s rather unfortunate, and the next seven days doesn’t look too promising. The only shot at any rainfall looks to be associated with thunderstorms; which can often be of no help during drought situations as opposed to the widespread beneficial rainfall we’ve been wanting.

August, though dry month for many, has been a wet one compared to July. In just the first week, many locations had already accumulated more rainfall than they had in the entire month of July. Here’s a look at many of the August rainfall totals compared to July rainfall totals for the entire month. Although some locations have yet to reach the amount that they did in July; keep in mind that we are not even halfway through the month.

Also remember that some of these areas that saw the higher amounts of rainfall in July, received that during thunderstorms; so most of that was not helpful to those farmers.

Although many of the corn crops cannot be saved at this point, there are other plants that could still use the rain at this point. Many area Christmas tree farms have struggled this year, but any rainfall that they do get will be essential in helping the trees make it through the winter months. Let’s remain optimistic and hope for more rainfall, and be thankful for the rain we have gotten so far this month.