Drought Conditions Improving Very Slowly

by Joel Young, Meteorologist/Reporter
August 23, 2012 10:34 AM


Not much has changed with the drought situation across the region. Although many of us have seen more rainfall in August than we have all summer, it hasn’t been enough to improve the rainfall deficit. In fact, the rainfall that we have seen has only prevented the extreme drought conditions from spreading any farther north.

Just by glancing at this week’s drought monitor, it doesn’t look much different than last week’s. In one of last week’s blog posts, we mentioned that the drought conditions would slowly subside over the next few months. The latest drought monitor is showing just that, but it is hard to see. The percentage of South Dakota land area experiencing severe drought conditions has only dropped by 0.16%. As for Nebraska and Iowa; this percentage has increased, but only for the states as a whole. Drought conditions in areas of NW Iowa and NE Nebraska haven’t gotten any worse. Minnesota has seen a 0.01% increase, but with such a small increase; we will likely see conditions improve very soon.











For our area as a whole, it is safe to say that we have seen the worst of this summer’s drought. Although most of the damage has been done, we are optimistic that we will see these conditions continue to improve over the next few months—even if it is a slow improvement.

Here’s a look at rain chances over the next five days. Although we are not forecast to see a dramatic amount of rainfall, you can see that there is a considerable amount of rainfall forecast for other parts of the country that are also experiencing extreme drought conditions. These forecasts can change a good bit from day to day, so be sure to stay tuned to KDLT and KDLT.com for more detailed forecasts.