Mid-October Drought Monitor



It has been weeks since Watertown has seen measurable rain and it is evidenced everywhere. Red Flag Warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service, the Codington County Commissioners have enacted and renewed burn bans, grass began turning brown in September and now high winds gusting past 45 mph are kicking up dust and destroying air quality indexes.

On Oct. 17, the NWS, in partnership with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, published the most current iteration of the Drought Monitor which placed much of the state in the “abnormally dry” category or worse. Codingon County, for example, is in the “moderate drought” category—no part of the state was considered to be drought-free.

While the abnormally dry weather may be good for farmers getting their crops out of the field, it’s not doing anyone else a favor, especially those sensitive to dust or with lung problems.

According to the Drought Monitor’s text analysis:

The dry pattern continued over the High Plains with only a small area of North Dakota recording any precipitation this week. The warm temperatures continued as well with most areas 4-8 degrees above normal and even greater departures of 8-12 degrees above normal in the plains of Wyoming and Colorado and portions of western Nebraska and South Dakota. Degradation took place from North Dakota to Kansas and into the plains of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Moderate and severe drought were expanded in North Dakota, mainly in the south and west portions of the state. South Dakota had moderate and severe drought expand in the northern, southern, and western portions of the state and had extreme drought expand in the northwest and a new area in southern portions of the state. Nebraska and Kansas both had severe and moderate drought expand over many areas of the state. Kansas had extreme drought expand in the far southeast. Moderate and severe drought expanded over eastern Colorado and abnormally dry conditions expanded over portions of northeast Colorado and into Wyoming and Nebraska. Eastern Wyoming had moderate, severe, and extreme drought conditions expand.

The U.S. Drought Monitor is produced through a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.