The new drought monitor shows the same old story for Iowa, the drought conditions are not getting better. Tim Hall of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says the areas that didn’t get some of last week’s rain show up in the drought map.
Northeast Iowa has the most counties in extreme or severe drought conditions. Both of those designations increased statewide last week with nearly 26% of the state in extreme drought and almost 73% in severe drought. Hall says the water levels in some rivers and streams are much lower than normal for this time of year.
He says flows tend to be low this time of year anyway and being 10% below normal really indicates how little rainfall we’ve had. Hall says water systems that pull from rivers have one thing in their favor.
But Hall says there is a lot of concern about when we might get some rain to replenish the dry areas.
He says the short-term forecast doesn’t call for much precipitation to help with the problem.
