DAYTON — Good Thursday morning, everyone! A bit of a chilly start out there early this morning. Did anyone see any frost? I saw some patches of frost on rooftops, but nothing to major in Clark County.
Let’s jump into the latest regarding the drought conditions in the Miami Valley! When you look at the drought monitor at face value, you notice things technically got worse compared to last week.
We saw Severe Drought expand into parts of Shelby, Logan, Champaign, and Clark Counties this week. Additionally, we now have Extreme Drought in northern Mercer and Auglaize Counties. That is a first for those counties since the Drought Monitor started in 2000.
While there were intense droughts in years prior to 2000, there was not a formal tracking system to show weekly updates like we have now. So, the label “Extreme” Drought is a first there based on looking back to 2000 and how each week’s drought updates have prevailed since.
There is a big disclaimer here to the map this week. The data collected for this week’s update is from last Tuesday (September 30th) to 8:00 AM this past Tuesday (October 7th).
The reason for the cutoff there is so climatologists and experts can review the data and draft a new map. Data reviewed includes rainfall, temperatures, stream flows along rivers, agriculture, and any other indicators driving drought at that time.
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We saw a wide range of totals between Monday and Tuesday. For those who got the heaviest rain, we know most of that fell after the 8:00 AM cutoff on Tuesday. That rain will be configured into next week’s update and we are likely to see some relief in parts of the Miami Valley. Those across Mercer and Auglaize Counties who missed most of the rain altogether may not see much change into next week.
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You can get a county-by-county look at the drought and how much of your area is in the drought by checking out the photo gallery above! Have a great Thursday!
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