While this week’s drought update from the National Weather Service office in St. Louis shows no dramatic change in precipitation patterns in the immediate future, there is good news with lower temperatures and less humidity in the forecast.
Mid-Thursday storms delivered 1.3 inches of rain in the Jefferson City area, but National Weather Service Hydrologist Mark Fuchs said it would take several days of that type of rain to bring the area to normal rainfall amounts for this time of the year.
“The worst of the drought has occurred in the last few weeks, starting around the beginning of June,” Fuchs said.
For the year, we’re at 15.3 inches of rain, which is down 8.3 inches from the average of 23.7 inches.” The long-term forecast is not offering much hope for significant rains, Fuchs said.
“Almost always the culprit is a big high pressure system in the southern part of the country pushing north into the Midwest, and that’s what we’ve seen,” he said.
“When you get to the 100-degree mark, like we’ve seen for much of the past couple of weeks, that causes evaporation; and this part of the country has extraordinarily high rates,” he said.
Another positive for Mid-Missouri counties along the Missouri River is river levels are where water access will not be a problem for the immediate future.
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There are at least three public water supplies in northern Missouri where much of the area is listed in “extreme” drought.
The governor’s action included a drought alert for 47 Missouri counties experiencing severe or extreme drought on the U.S. Drought Monitor.