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Drought Watch 2015


Hoosier

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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.

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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.

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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.

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As the drought monitor alluded to 90 day precip deficit, here is % of average precip over the past 90 days

 

 

attachicon.gif90dPNormMRCC.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"

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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.
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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.
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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."

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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.

 

post-14-0-29134200-1429206528_thumb.png

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post-14-0-08768100-1429807229_thumb.png

 

 


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.

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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.

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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.

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  • 1 month later...

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.

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