(Area) Dry conditions persisted through the month of August with rainfall deficits over two inches below normal in some areas.
State Climatologist Justin Glisan reports Atlantic received a shade over two inches of moisture in the past month. “Atlantic received 2.06″ of rain and that’s 2.3″ below average. The highest 24 hour rainfall fell between 7:00 a.m. on the 15th and 7:00 a.m. on the 16th and that was right under an inch, 0.99.” Measurable rain fell on 12 days of the month.”
Rainfall in both July and August has become a relatively rare event over the past decade. “In July and August is when we see drought conditions really expand. Spring and fall our our re-charge seasons. We’ve seen wetter springs and wetter falls basically over the last ten years. That’s where we start to re-charge subsoil moisture and it starts to put a chip in those precipitation deficits we stack up when it does get dry.”
August was unseasonably dry for the Southwestern 3/4 of Iowa with precipitation deficits from 1-3 inches below normal. “South Central Iowa experienced the most dry conditions with deficits over three inches. Only Northeastern Iowa reported wetter than average conditions with pockets of 3-4″ of above normal totals from heavier rainfall events. For August the statewide preliminary average precipitation totaled 3.53″ and that’s about six tenths of an inch below normal.”
August temperatures were 1-2 degrees above normal on average across the state at 72.3 degrees.
