Drought returns to Minnesota after several months of wet weather

After a wet spring and summer, the rains have nearly stopped in September. Most of the state is abnormally dry now and moderate drought has returned to southwest Minnesota.

Drought conditions have crept back into Minnesota 

Who would have thought just last month that we’d be talking about drought again. Parts of Minnesota saw nearly double the normal summer rainfall amounts. That rain suddenly stopped as the calendar turned from August to September. Take a look at rainfall over the past 60 days:

Parts of southwest Minnesota have only seen about 2 inches of rain over the last two months. Parts of northeast Minnesota also have only seen about 3 inches of rain. These values result in deficits of 3 to 5 inches in portions of southwest and northeast Minnesota over a 60-day period. You can see that central Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, remains at a surplus over that period. 

While our lawns are certainly crunchy in the Twin Cities and central Minnesota, we still have adequate moisture in the soil from the surplus summer rainfall so we’re not classified as abnormally dry yet. 

The good news is that we have chances of thunderstorms late Thursday and an additional chance over the weekend into Monday. The 8 to 14 day outlook calls for below-normal precipitation, so we may be dealing with dry conditions overall while a lucky few get rainfall in the short term.