The Drought Monitor is Back...

Well that didn't take too long!  After finally making it out of our big drought from last year we've gone in the wrong direction over the last couple months.  As of today parts of our area are back on the drought monitor!  The areas shaded in yellow on this graphic are now Abnormally Dry...and with 10 more days of dry weather coming up things will get worse before they get better again! 




Here's the Iowa map...

Moderate drought near Des Moines

And here's the view for the state of Illinois...

 

Illinois update

It's really been feast or famine this year for rain around the Quad cities.  Remember all the flooding we had on the Mississippi River earlier this year (and all other rivers too for that matter?)  We had a massive excess of rain through June and things have now really turned back around...look at some of the monthly rain totals over the last 4.5 months:

April - 7.21"
May  - 7.97"
June  - 6.14" (Most of this actually fell in one day)
July - 2.56"
August - 0.76"

We can hope things will turn around sooner than later, but right now it doesn't look too promising!