Record-breaking rainfall led to aggressive improvements in drought conditions across parts of the South. The heavy rainfall and flooding led to communications outages at the National Weather Service office leaving climatologists without access to important data and tools needed to fully analyze the effect of this event. The magnitude of this event meant prioritizing improvements on this week’s map in these areas and in the Southwest, where the Monsoon season remains active. Drought expanded in the Northwest was warm, dry conditions continued across the region.
The Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast saw a mix of improvements and degradations.
According to today's Drought Monitor report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), spotty, heavy rain fell across the Midwest this week leading to a mix of drought improvement and deterioration.
Moderate drought (D1) improved in western Kentucky in response to above normal rainfall over the past 30 days. Meanwhile, nearby counties that missed these recent heavy rains saw an expansion of D1. In Missouri, rainfall of 150 to 300 percent of normal for the week led to broad 1-category improvements to areas of moderate (D1), severe (D2), and extreme (D3) drought. Totals of 1 to 4 inches erased short term moisture deficits, replenished soils, and restored streamflows.
Central Minnesota also saw improvements to D1 in response to recent rainfall and seasonable temperature.
Illinois saw conditions improve in the east and central part of the state and expand in the west. Moderate drought increased near the Iowa border where deficits of over 5 inches over the last 90 days dried out soils and lowered streamflows. Additional analysis across the Midwest next week is likely to result in increasing drought severity across Iowa due to persistent dry weather.
For the full USDA report for Aug. 11, click here.