The weekly update to the US Drought Monitor was released Thursday morning and showed not much improvement to the drought situation over Iowa. The driest areas of the state continued to stay dry with the southeastern portion of the state much wetter and even above average in places. This dichotomy is nicely shown by a heatmap of at least D0 classification drought over the continental US so far this year. Areas in white would be indicated to be drought-free, at least by the drought monitor so far this year. Areas in yellow have been in at least D0 all year long. Iowa is only one of a couple of states shown with both a drought free and 100% drought area within the same sate. Given the lack of rain this week and warmer temperatures, it is certainly likely that next week's drought monitor update will show more degradation over Iowa.

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Tags:   usdm