Needing the Rain

It's nice to have a few dry days here and there but the northern part of the state has missed out on some of the bigger rainfall.  As of today, June 28th, our monthly rainfall total is a little over two inches.  We should be over four inches for recorded rain!  This puts us over two inches below where we need to be.

There was a decent rain a couple weeks ago with strong thunderstorms that roared through during the overnight, but since then we've been pretty quiet.  It hasn't been that way, though, for the entire viewing area.  Our far southern counties of Lee and DeKalb have picked up quite a few inches of rainfall for the month.  Almost giving them too much.  There will be a little rain for Thursday, but it does not look like enough to make up for our deficit.

The latest drought monitor from the National Drought Mitigation Center does show drier than normal conditions developing over parts of Illinois and southern Iowa, with moderate drought conditions developing in southeast Iowa.  It's amazing to see how spatially driven the rainfall has been this month, not only from northern Illinois to central Illinois, but also from county to county.

Hopefully we can make up for some of that rain in the coming weeks, but this upcoming week doesn't look too promising.  The next drought monitor will be released this Thursday.  It will be interesting to see if the 'abnormally dry' conditions get extended any further north.