Drought Monitor: Drier than normal conditions expand in Illinois and Wisconsin

Despite the inch or so of rain that fell last week it wasn't enough to help Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin.  The latest release of the drought monitor from the National Drought Mitigation Center shows the drier than normal conditions expanding across the state of Illinois and now moderate drought conditions developing in western Illinois; a big jump from last week! 

Further north, the dry conditions have expanded to cover much of Wisconsin.  Moderate drought conditions have also developed in the western part of the state expanding into Minnesota.  So far, Rockford has seen 2.72" of rainfall during the month of August with the bulk of that rain actually coming from last week.  As of today, Thursday, we're still almost an inch and a half shy of where we need to be for the end of the month.

While there are thunderstorms in the forecast for the weekend nothing looks too promising.  The latest 3 day outlook keeps the bulk of the heaviest rain to the north (good for Wisconsin) but also leaves us with only a tenth up to a quarter of an inch of rain through Sunday.  The dry conditions continue to have a negative impact on the crop conditions across the state of Illinois.