Drought Enters ‘Phase Two,’ St. Cloud Gives Water Conservation Tips

(KNSI) – Drought conditions in Minnesota are the most severe in more than 30 years, and St. Cloud is asking residents to conserve water.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources issued a new warning on Friday. The state is entering phase two of the drought at the same time St. Cloud officials warn the Mississippi River is at its lowest water level since 1988.

The warning means communities should start taking precautions to conserve water.

National Weather Service Forecast Meteorologist Melissa Dye works in the Chanhassen office and says phase two means at least 50% of the state is in severe drought and around 5% is experiencing extreme drought.

“Basically, the soil is dry, and the drier it gets, the more it takes to kind of replenish things. So as the deficit gets larger, it gets harder to overcome.”

Dye says St. Cloud is about two inches behind its average rainfall for July and about three inches behind for the year.

“But it will take more than that to recover from the drought. So it would take a couple of pretty good soaking wet rain events to really turn things around.”

The DNR says it will take at least three to five inches of precipitation spread over about two weeks to alleviate the drought significantly.

The ground is more efficiently replenished by multiple rainfalls rather than a single heavy rainfall.

Dye says there’s no significant rain in the forecast for the rest of the month, but we could see a few sprinkles this week.

She says while we won’t set in records for daytime highs, we could set records for the hottest overnight lows over the next week.

To conserve water during the drought, St. Cloud asks people to limit watering lawns to once or twice a week, mulch grass when mowing, let the grass grow longer before cutting, and invest in a rain barrel.

Get more water conservation tips by clicking here.

___