Heat, dry conditions contribute to short-term drought

CINCINNATI - Some much-needed rain fell on Sunday, but it’s really not enough to quench the drought that is looming across the Tri-State. Areas like southeast Indiana and parts of Butler County are in a drought and could’ve used that rain, but unfortunately it didn’t see much.

It all started with a dry winter, followed by an early spring, along with the lack of rainfall, and then record-breaking temperatures … all contributing to the meteorological drought that we’re now in.

Our situation now goes beyond our dry grass and wilting gardens and has reached a significant level of concern.

We talked with Service Hydrologist Julie Reed from the National Weather Service in Wilmington about how critical our situation really is.

Reed said that conditions across the Tri-State have worsened, and we are falling into a short-term drought. It takes time to reach this status, and unfortunately, takes quite a bit of time to pull out of it.

Reed also said that we need to see a shift in the weather pattern, where we’d see a continuous stream of rain events. Unfortunately, it appears that the current weather pattern of warm, dry weather will continue for July.

July is a critical month for rainfall in our area, and long term forecasts for the month don’t look good. In fact, we have a really good chance of seeing below-average precipitation, and we’re already over 4.5 inches behind on what we typically see for rainfall this time of year.

How does this year’s short term drought compare to the drought of 1988? The National Weather Service has done a study on that. Click here for more. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/climo/summaries/1988_2012/1988_2012.php

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