Minnesota's drought continues to expand

Minnesota’s drought continues to expand as dry weather persists. Portions of northeastern Minnesota saw a little improvement thanks to rainfall last weekend.

Drought expands; subtle improvement in NE Minnesota

Our fall drought continues to expand its grip in Minnesota, newly released data shows. Areas in at least moderate drought expanded to 72 percent of Minnesota, up from 69 percent a week ago. It was a smaller increase than the previous couple of weeks.

Severe drought increased from 20 percent last week to 28 percent this week. Most of that increase was in southwestern and north-central Minnesota.

Northeastern Minnesota actually saw some improvement. A swath of Lake County and eastern St. Louis County moved from severe drought to the improved category of moderate drought thanks to lucky rainfall last Saturday. That area saw over 1 inch of rainfall.

Overall, most of us are far behind on rainfall. Over the past 60 days, rainfall deficits range from 3 to almost 6 inches behind for most areas. Only isolated pockets of far northern and northwestern Minnesota are seeing subtle rainfall surpluses.

A weak disturbance could bring light rainfall to northwestern Minnesota Friday into Saturday, otherwise the warm, windy days ahead will continue to dry out soils and plants. A red flag warning is posted for most of Minnesota Thursday due to the dry conditions and high winds.