Minnesota State Drought Monitor September 6th 2012

Drought and dry conditions are continuing to become a significant issue across the local area. The latest drought monitor has put the entire area into a status, and southern areas in Far southern Mower and Fillmore counties in severe to exceptional drought. Moderate drought extends into eastern Winona County. This dry snap started more then a year ago in late July of 2011. It is worsened by the fact that we had a very dry, warm winter and at very hot dry summer. Areas of the south are anywhere from 8 to 9 inches below from where they should be at this point in the season. As of January 1st areas like Preston was 5.83″ below normal, Austin is 8.52″ below normal and Rochester International Airport is 5.06″ below normal. If you go back even further from when this drought started August 1st 2011 to September 4th 2012 you can see that Preston is 13.72″ below normal, Austin is 17.08″ below normal and Rochester Airport is 13.10″ below normal. The dry conditions have been helped some by recent storms but with dry weather expected for the next week it will continue to be an issue. The main effects of the dry season are shorter corn crops, significantly low rivers, damage to lawns and landscapes and early leaf drop. The far worst conditions in the area are seen along the Iowa/Minnesota border which is in exceptional drought conditions. Hopefully we can get into a wetter pattern this fall to help ease dry conditions across the area.

Effects of Fall Color Season 2012

With the very dry warm winter leading into a dry hot summer we are expected to unfortunately have a very poor fall color season this year, similar to last year. I have noticed some trees trees are already responding to stress and a dropping their leaves early without any color at all. Trees that don’t lose their leaves will likely have dull colors because of the lack of rainfall. A warm fall would speed up this process and lead to faster leaf drop.