Large Area of Iowa in Extreme Drought.
- Thread starter StClone
- Start date
We doing any better on this now? I mean my gosh I'm mowing like every 3 days.
The drought monitor is updated once a week on Thursdays. My area in NE Iowa was downgraded from extreme to severe last update and it has been raining pretty regularly this week.
I'm guessing the the term "drought" means catching up on water from prior years. Currently when driving around, it certainly is very moist and very green healthy lawns.
Apparently we're going to need a global flood for Iowa to get out of this drought.
I'm pretty sure the monitor also has something to do with the sub soil moisture. The top 8"-12" or so, most likely has enough moisture now. The sub soil was still very dry as of a week ago and will take a lot to get that back to "normal."
That's only a good indicator of the top 4-6". An inch or so will saturate that. It's the top 5-6' that tell the tale and the capacity there is more like a foot of water. On a bright note, I noticed that the Skunk isn't dry through Ames, so that's a positive.
Are they measuring in heavily tiled corn fields? Or would that even make a difference?
Yeah I figured we still had a ways to go, you aren't going to solve a multi-year drought in 2 weeks unless things go the other way. But man this has to be helping.
Used to work with a guy whose sump would run all the time. Replaced it twice.
Finally they figured out the homebuilders had tiled his sump outflow back into the tile around the house, so it was just cycling around itself, eternally.
Not really. About a decade ago north Texas and nearby locations were suffering from what TWC called a "new normal" type of drought. Took about a month of rain for them to shelve that idea. And they haven't spoke of it since. And I think it's happening in the midwest now after a few years of dry weather.
So unless you live in a desert.......it will rain again. And the hydration process is always faster than the evaporation process.
Dredge ditches are full and tiles are blasting up in NC Iowa. Standing water all over. So we are not in a drought up here anymore.
West of you and we're all good! Hope the guys who were talking about how we needed spring rain to raise a crop are happy! The next time we have too dry of a spring where I am will be the first one for 3 generations of us at least!
I said the snow amounts are meaningless and March/April rains will fix things. Posters said no way. One advantage of being older, I’ve seen this rodeo a few previous times.
I always thought drought was measured by historical stream and river flows, and had nothing to do with soil moisture. I could also be completely mistaken. Streams and rivers around me in NC Iowa have recovered a little so far . Ponds and lakes are still way down though.
