Drought’s grip on Iowa expands.
Dry conditions have continued to spread across the state while the northeast corner continues to recover from excessive rainfall.
“For the first time in I think three years, we’ve started to see a little bit of what they call D-2 — which is severe drought — creeping into south-central Iowa,” Hall says.
“Over the last 30 days, so this would be pretty much the month of July, the southeast corner of the state is between 325 to 50 percent of normal.
And there are other areas of the state that are down below half the normal rain,” Hall says.
He says it makes more of an impact when the rain don’t come this time of year.
Getting a really dry January doesn’t have a lot of impact on hydrologic conditions because we just don’t get that much moisture.
Same thing for October and November,” Hall says.
“We’re seeing some groundwater levels that are a little troubling,” Hall says, “primarily when we get up into the northwest corner of the state.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas are also seeing stressed crops and farm animals from dry conditions.