SpartyOn Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 I dont understand how this works? Do they literally go only by how much precip has fallen? The snowmelt of march for the most part took around a week. (Obviously a few parking lot piles linger, im talking the main pack). That would be the equivalent of getting about 2.5" of rain the 2nd into 3rd week of march. Since Jan 1st the region (DTW) is running a -2.50" precipitation deficit. We need rain and the snowpack melt does little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWXwx Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 No worries about drought here for the time being. I caught .82" last night and this morning with another shot at some light precip Sunday/Sunday night. However, areas just to my north and northwest being dry now could portend troubles later in the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Don't think it works that way. Snowpack is precipitation that has already fallen. Its winter's contribution to soil moisture, it just hasn't made its way into the ground yet. 2.5" over the last three months or so isn't very impressive. It might melt all at once but that moisture will quickly percolate to deeper soil horizons and leave the surface dry, especially in the absence of any liquid precipitation this month. Soil moisture and consequently drought conditions are dependent on the total amount of precip that has fallen over long time scales, you need to look beyond the puddles and mud at the surface. The last 3 months have had more than 2.5" fall, thats just the approximate core sample of the snowpack prior to March meltdown. Still, precip is definitely below normal the last 3 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 As the drought monitor alluded to 90 day precip deficit, here is % of average precip over the past 90 days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 As the drought monitor alluded to 90 day precip deficit, here is % of average precip over the past 90 days 90dPNormMRCC.png Im a little more understanding of how it works now, but still that map is wrong over Detroit. It has us in the 25-50% of normal precip, it should be in the 50-70% range (though closer to 50 than 70 lol). The exact number for Detroit for Dec 26-Mar 25: Precip: 3.38" Normal: 6.25" % of normal: 54% There are a few snowfalls that may have been underdone in the age of ASOS (sometimes DTX corrects a low asos number, but a few still were a bit low). Regardless though it was a cold winter with plenty of dry snowfalls and not much else. Spring rainfall will be the key to drought. FWIW....I broke down my backyard numbers for the same period. I do everything the "old fashioned" way so there is no asos error whatsoever lol. Dec 26-Mar 25 precip 3.92" Breakdown of ptype: 0.99" fell as rain 0.15" fell as freezing rain 2.78" fell as snow, amounting to 44.4" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KokomoWX Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 JB posted this on twitter this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-L-E-K Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 lol @ JB LAX average like 2-3" a month during the west season and nearly struck out 200% of a typical May's .22" isn't going to provide relief dude is such a denier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbertfly Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 IL IN look to get good precip next week...not so much up where it is needed most in minnesota for our sub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted April 9, 2015 Author Share Posted April 9, 2015 I failed to update last time, but some more d0 compared to last week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geos Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 D0 cancel in this area for now. Should trim back the D1 and D0 in Wisconsin and Michigan too after tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 D0 cancel in this area for now. Should trim back the D1 and D0 in Wisconsin and Michigan too after tonight. My concern level for drought here has been nonexistent. Ever since the snowpack melted 4 weeks ago (which released 2.5" water), and now we are getting rain falling frequently (tho mostly not heavy), I have YET to see a single day where there isn't some standing water in fields and ditches. I know theres more to the drought monitor than that, it just seems silly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chitown Storm Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Parts of SE MN picked up several inches of liquid precip yesterday. Drought denter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclone77 Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 MLI is now over 3" short for the year. We've only had about 3" of precip here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherbo Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 My concern level for drought here has been nonexistent. Ever since the snowpack melted 4 weeks ago (which released 2.5" water), and now we are getting rain falling frequently (tho mostly not heavy), I have YET to see a single day where there isn't some standing water in fields and ditches. I know theres more to the drought monitor than that, it just seems silly.If the ground was mostly frozen during the melt off, that 2.5" was likely more runoff than anything so doesn't really help soil moisture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-L-E-K Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 JB posted this on twitter this morning. bust? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWXwx Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 I know that there are skeptics concerning a possible drought, but some areas of the subforum remain abnormally dry. A couple of mets in Northern Indiana have mentioned it in their forecast discussions: "THIS SYSTEM WILL BRING MUCH NEEDED RAINFALL TO THE AREA...BUT WILL HAVE TO CONTINUETO MONITOR BEFORE GETTING A BETTER IDEA OF AMOUNTS. IF THE STRONGERSOLUTIONS SUCH AS THE 12Z GFS VERIFY SOME AREAS COULD SEE IN EXCESSOF AN INCH FROM THIS EVENT...BUT IF THE FINAL SOLUTION IS WEAKER...RAINFALL AMOUNTS MAY DO LITTLE TO MITIGATE CURRENT DRY CONDITIONS." "MAY SEE SOME LOCALIZED (NEEDED) RAINFALL TOTALS EXCEED A HALF INCH GIVEN AMPLEMOISTURE (850 MB DEWPOINTS NEAR 9C) AND LOW CHANCE FOR A CONVECTIVE COMPONENT." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 I know that there are skeptics concerning a possible drought, but some areas of the subforum remain abnormally dry. A couple of mets in Northern Indiana have mentioned it in their forecast discussions: "THIS SYSTEM WILL BRING MUCH NEEDED RAINFALL TO THE AREA...BUT WILL HAVE TO CONTINUE TO MONITOR BEFORE GETTING A BETTER IDEA OF AMOUNTS. IF THE STRONGER SOLUTIONS SUCH AS THE 12Z GFS VERIFY SOME AREAS COULD SEE IN EXCESS OF AN INCH FROM THIS EVENT...BUT IF THE FINAL SOLUTION IS WEAKER...RAINFALL AMOUNTS MAY DO LITTLE TO MITIGATE CURRENT DRY CONDITIONS." "MAY SEE SOME LOCALIZED (NEEDED) RAINFALL TOTALS EXCEED A HALF INCH GIVEN AMPLE MOISTURE (850 MB DEWPOINTS NEAR 9C) AND LOW CHANCE FOR A CONVECTIVE COMPONENT." IWX area has gotten squeezed the first half of the month. This added on to the deficit from winter, especially March. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 Moderate rain (1-2 inches) fell over western portions of the abnormal dryness (D0) area in eastern Iowa over the weekend, resulting in minor trimming of the drought depiction. In west-central Iowa, about 1.5 inches of rain fell this past week, prompting the elimination of the small area of abnormal dryness (D0). In northern Minnesota, variable temperature and precipitation conditions occurred throughout the week. Dry, warm and windy conditions prevailed early in the week, while cooler temperatures, reduced evaporation and precipitation amounts ranging from 0.3-1.0 inch occurred late in the week. Despite the rain, stream flows in northwestern and north-central Minnesota remain within the lowest quartile of the historical distribution. For now, no degradations were made to the drought depiction in Minnesota. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geos Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 Little surprised to see the D0 conditions still around after the wet first half of the month. Saturdays' system should chip away at that D0 area furthest south. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclone77 Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 Here's where we were in 2012 around this time. Still wasn't anything too bad at that point. Except for parts of Iowa and Minnesota. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wisconsinwx Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 Untitled.png It's funny that S Wisconsin is in abnormally dry. The whole southern half of the state pretty much is above average in terms of April precip, and the last rains were of the soaking variety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted April 24, 2015 Author Share Posted April 24, 2015 It's funny that S Wisconsin is in abnormally dry. The whole southern half of the state pretty much is above average in terms of April precip, and the last rains were of the soaking variety. There's still deficits going back to the beginning of the year...maybe that has something to do with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWXwx Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 There's still deficits going back to the beginning of the year...maybe that has something to do with it. Also, aren't evaporation rates somehow figured into it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wisconsinwx Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 I understand, but general 1" deficits from the first three months should be mostly negated by a 2" or so surplus in the rainiest month on average to date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted April 24, 2015 Author Share Posted April 24, 2015 Also, aren't evaporation rates somehow figured into it? I posted this farther up in the thread http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/AboutUs/ClassificationScheme.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-L-E-K Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 it's just D0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted April 24, 2015 Author Share Posted April 24, 2015 I understand, but general 1" deficits from the first three months should be mostly negated by a 2" or so surplus in the rainiest month on average to date. ??? MKE and MSN had ~3" deficits from January 1-March 31. The wet April has put a big dent in that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wisconsinwx Posted April 24, 2015 Share Posted April 24, 2015 I should've clarified, I was referring to the 1" per month on average deficits. In any case, I figured the last month or so would have a higher weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted June 4, 2015 Author Share Posted June 4, 2015 Update, been a while. Down to patchy dryness now. California still ****** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trent Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 It's incredible how quickly the extreme and exceptional drought in Oklahoma/Texas went away with all the rain the past month. That was a huge chunk of real estate under drought conditions just a month ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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