After a very dry May and the start of June, the entire viewing area fell into drought. Little improvement was made when last week's drought monitor was issued on June 15. However, after receiving more rain over the last week, most notably on Thursday (along with severe storms and destructive tornadoes), we are starting to see drought improvements across portions of The Power of 5 viewing area. In fact, according to the US Drought Monitor, Ohio is the greatest beneficiary of the heavy rains this week across the Midwest.
The Buckeye State saw the most improvement, with several areas receiving more than 2 inches of rainfall. However, note in the image below that not everyone has received the same amount of rain. Two to 4 inches of rain is very common in our northern and western communities, but many communities to the east and south of Akron have picked up less than 2 inches of rain over the last two weeks. For example, much of Portage, Stark, and southern Ashtabula Counties have only received 1-1.5 inches of rain in over two weeks (June 6 - June 20).
The weekly update to the United States Drought Monitor was issued on Thursday morning, and there was a noticeable change to the map. Last week, 78% of the state was in moderate drought. Now only 32% of the state is experiencing moderate drought. That is a 45% change! You can see these changes easily on the maps below that compare this week to last week's drought monitor. Note how the beige area (moderate drought/D1) has been removed from nearly all of our viewing area, with the exception of the counties that received less rain, in southern Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning, Portage, eastern Summit & Stark, and northern Carroll County. Drought has been removed for all of Lorain, Cuyahoga, and Lake Counties. Everyone else is now in abnormally dry/D0, which shows areas that may be going in or going out of drought. It also looks like we will get more scattered rain chances throughout this weekend and next week as well!
The U.S. Drought Monitor is a map released every Thursday (with data from Tuesday to Tuesday). It tracks drought across the U.S. Using five classifications: Abnormally dry (D0), which shows areas that may be going into or are coming out of drought, and four levels of drought: Moderate (D1), severe (D2), extreme (D3) and exceptional (D4).
It is also important to note that drought has actually worsened in many other Midwestern states and into the plains. You can see the latest updates from the US drought monitor here.
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