Drought Monitor Report Shows Conditions Worsening Across Minnesota

(KNSI) – The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows worsening drought conditions across Minnesota.

The newest report, updated Thursday, shows 72% of Minnesota is now in severe drought, with 18% experiencing extreme drought. A portion of that 18% is in Stearns and Morrison Counties.

A Condition Monitoring Observation report detail from a contact at the Soil Water Conservation District in Stearns County from July 16th shows “Farmers are seeing significant drought stress in areas with coarse textured soils and no irrigation. These areas will probably not recover even if we do get rain. Areas with finer textured soils are also showing drought stress but would show some recovery with rain. Irrigated areas are keeping up for now, but we will soon be approaching the grand consumption period of ET, and they may struggle to keep up with providing enough water. “I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a 1988 drought, we are at about 7-8 currently.”

Another contact reported that some of the coarser areas are “likely beyond recovery. Some of them are clearly beyond recovery and will not have any grain yield to speak of.” As for the corn, they are reporting it “doesn’t look terrible but it is stressed.”

The drought monitor report from June 1st showed less than one percent of the state in severe drought. The report from last week showed the state beginning to experience extreme drought, with just under four percent reporting extreme drought conditions.

Watering bans are in place in several cities with others asking residents to cut back on watering lawns, and only running washing machines and dishwashers with a full load.

The rain that fell Thursday will help some, but National Weather Service Forecast Meteorologist Melissa Dye says St. Cloud is about two inches behind its average rainfall for July and about three inches behind for the year. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says it will take at least three to five inches of precipitation spread over about two weeks to alleviate the drought significantly as the round is more efficiently replenished by multiple rainfalls rather than a single heavy rainfall.

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