Drought is slowly creeping it’s way back into Iowa, as shown in Tuesday’s drought monitor update from the National Drought Mitigation Center. This will likely surprise many as it seemed that we had endless rain in May, June, and some parts of July

As you can see, when compared to climatology, the areas in red are seeing a deficit, while the areas in blue are seeing a surplus. There’s not a lot of areas around normal – you either get a lot of rain, or you’re very dry. The areas in abnormally dry drought are seeing a three inch deficit, which, in comparison to California, is very minor, however, this will need to be monitored in the coming months, especially with the El Niño heating up in the Pacific. There is rain in the forecast, except it does not look to provide any relief to those in northeast Iowa, unfortunately. Hopefully we’ll see something in the long term heat up before winter hits.