(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Drought projections shift again, with relief for western Iowa [1]
['Jared Strong', 'More From Author', '- June']
Date: 2023-06-15
Newly released drought outlooks predict that dry conditions in Iowa will continue to worsen through the end of June but that drought will ease in western Iowa in the following months.
The federal Climate Prediction Center has changed its view in recent weeks about what the future holds for the state’s ongoing drought, which in places has lasted for about three years.
The changes are due to the shift to an El Niño climate pattern that officially happened last week and might intensify through the end of the year.
“Thinking about those (El Niño) conditions, are we actually seeing an impact of that?” said Aaron Wilson, the state climatologist for Ohio who on Thursday gave a broad overview of what might happen in Midwestern states. “There’s a lot of uncertainty.”
He said historical data show that the climate pattern — which is fueled by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator — has the effect of lowering temperatures in Iowa and increasing chances for precipitation during summer months. Whether that will play out again this year remains to be seen.
However, what is certain is that drought has rapidly spread in the state in the past month — sometimes called a “flash drought,” Tim Hall, coordinator of hydrology resources for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said last week.
In the past four weeks, parts of southeast Iowa had rainfall deficits of more than four inches.
“Those are areas with sub or below 5% of normal rainfall,” Wilson said. “These are big, big deficits, especially for this time of the year.”
A major reason for the recent string of hot and dry days is a “blocking pattern” of high-level air that had been hanging over a very wide area of Canada and the northern United States, he said.
More than two-thirds of the state is suffering from some degree of drought, according to a Thursday report by the U.S. Drought Monitor. That represents a tripling of the area affected by drought in the past month.
That expansion has happened in eastern and southern Iowa. The state, as a whole, is now drier than it’s been since the start of the year.
This spring was the 14th driest on record for the Iowa.
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https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/06/15/drought-projections-shift-again-with-relief-for-western-iowa/
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