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Drought continues expanding across Midwest

The drought that took hold in the western Corn Belt last fall is expanding.

Climatologist Brian Fuchs at the National Drought Mitigation Center tells Brownfield there’s extreme drought in Northwest Iowa.

“That signal is fairly real and it goes into southeast, east South Dakota and I can go back 12 to even 18 months in some of those areas and see this pocket of dryness is lingering in that area,” Fuchs says.

The latest drought monitor shows another patch of extreme drought in southwest Nebraska.

Fuchs says moderate drought stretches from Northern Illinois into Indiana with abnormally dry conditions in Ohio and Michigan.

“Going back in time, there are some significant deficits as far as precipitation needs and some lack of soil moisture recharge that we didn’t see in the fall.”

It’s also abnormally dry in Minnesota, most of Wisconsin and parts of Missouri.

He says recent warmer temperatures have melted the snow and dried out the soil reducing the risk for spring floods.