8-3 Missouri Drought Map

The U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday only included the rain ending in the past week Tuesday morning, so the other rain received since Tuesday morning wasn’t be considered. It will be considered in next week’s map. This week’s Missouri Drought Map only showed slight improvement over last week. The area considered in Moderate Drought dropped by 1 percentage point to 29 percent. Severe Drought territory actually increased by 3 percentage points to 30 percent. The Extreme Drought area went down 1 percent to 19 percent.

The western side of Missouri territory in our listening area remained in mostly pre-drought territory. Most of Atchison County is actually now out of any dryness conditions. DeKalb County, western Daviess County, and western Harrison County are Moderate Drought conditions. Eastern Harrison County, eastern Daviess County, all of Mercer County, and most of Putnam County remain in Severe Drought. The eastern half of Grundy County and nearly all of Sullivan County, in the map released today, are in Extreme Drought, but the large rain amounts this week in those areas are not considered in this map, and should significant change that area next week.

The Iowa Drought Map showed a slight downgrade with territory shifted from Moderate Drought to Severe Drought. Ringgold County is in Moderate Drought. Decatur County shows Severe Drought. Taylor County shows mostly pre-drought conditions. Western Wayne County is in Severe Drought. Eastern Wayne County shows Extreme Drought.

Overall, Iowa shows 52 percent of territory in Moderate Drought. That’s down 13 points. 26 percent of the state shows Severe Drought. That figure is up 12 points. Extreme Drought territory remained steady at 4 percent.