The latest Iowa Drought Monitor shows there’s no sign of drought conditions anywhere in the state. State Climatologist Justin Glisan said March, April and May have been particularly wet.
“Given 203 consecutive weeks of D1 moderate drought or higher somewhere in the state, the drought has finally been busted,” Glisan said during a Radio Iowa interview.
Glisan, as state climatolgoist monitors all nine climate divisions in Iowa, “Seven of them are having the top 10 wettest years to date,” Glisan said, “so after almost four years of drought with widespread and large scale precipitation deficits, this very wet stretch that we’ve had over the last several months has removed drought conditions.”
If there’s a particularly dry and warm stretch this summer, though, this may only be temporary.
“If you were to go back and do an average of the last year and half out to four years, of course those longer term precipitation deficits are going to reemerge,” Glisan said.
However, soil moisture levels and stream flows in Iowa are both near or above average right now and the initial weather outlook for June is for above normal precipitation.
“May and June are the two wettest months climatologically, so when we’re above average — and looking at May we’re anywhere from 140-180% above normal, that’s where we’re really starting to bank moisture for a stretch of dryness that we could see in summer,” Glisan said.
Glisan said deep underground aquifers do need to be replenished because any water surplus picked up in 2018 and 2019 is gone. The 24 month period of 2018 and 2019 is the wettest two year stretch in the 152 years that weather data has been recorded.