Drought conditions worsen across South Dakota.
The drought deepened and widened across South Dakota the past week, with the area ranked in “extreme drought” expanding to 10.74 percent of the state, including now all of Potter County and much of Sully County, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map.
The area in extreme drought now includes nine counties; Potter and Sully, virtually all of Corson County, part of Perkins and Dewey counties west of the Missouri, all of Campbell and Walworth counties and the western ends of McPherson and Edmunds counties.
The area of the state rated in some form of drought went up 15 percent, to encompass 72.41 percent of the state’s area as of Tuesday, compared with 57.73 percent as of a week earlier, according to the report released Thursday, July 13, by the National Drought Monitor Center at the University of Nebraska.
It means 355,520 people are living in areas now in some form of drought in the state; Sioux Falls and Rapid City areas remain in areas ranked as "abnormally dry."
The new Drought Monitor map released Thursday shows that 93.16 percent of the state, up from 90.68 percent a week ago, is affected by the hot, dry conditions, rated in “abnormally dry,” (20.75, down from 32.94 percent a week ago); in “moderate drought” (30.83 percent, up from 23.59 percent); “in severe drought” (30.84 percent, up from 29.84 percent); or in “extreme drought” (10.74 percent, up from 4.3 percent.)
North Dakota has a similar share of its area – 72.81 percent, up from 66.77 percent a week earlier, involving 359,447 people – in either moderate, severe or extreme drought, except that a full 35.85 percent share is in the extreme drought category.
With Montana, which has 22 percent of its area in the “extreme drought” category, the Dakotas and Montana are the only areas of the nation in such extreme drought.
South Dakota’s spring wheat crop, especially, has been hit hard, with 72 percent of the crop rated in poor or very poor condition by USDA’s crop watchers.
The state’s farmers will harvest their fewest bushels of spring wheat since 2002, according to USDA’s figures.