Large areas remain very dry
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Spotty rains over a wide area of northeast and central Missouri brought drought relief, but the northwest corner of Missouri from St. Joseph to west of Bethany remains in extreme drought, said an extension climatologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Counties in north central Missouri and in an area along Interstate 44 in south central Missouri, could be upgraded to “extreme drought” classification this week if rain doesn’t fall, said Pat Guinan, with the Commercial Agriculture program.
Counties in those areas received less than 2 inches of rainfall in May, usually one of the wettest months of the year. Those areas have received less than half of normal rainfall, building a deficit of 15 to 20 inches since last June.
Areas receiving rain over the weekend generally received a half to 1 inch of rainfall, Guinan said. “That gives about one week of relief.” A growing corn or soybean crop needs about an inch of rainfall or reserves from the subsoil at this time of year.
Bill Wiebold, MU extension agronomist, said, “We still have the potential for serious crop loss.” Crops were planted this spring over subsoil that was not replenished with water during the winter.
June precipitation will have to be above normal in order to bring subsoil moisture up to usable levels for the crops, Guinan said. Otherwise, the row crops will be dependent on frequent shower activity. “Unfortunately,” Guinan added, “a wetter-than-normal summer is not in the forecast from the Climate Predication Center.”
Bob Broz, MU extension water quality specialist, said several Missouri communities already have asked for help in planning water conservation for their municipal water supplies. Those include Vandalia, Bowling Green, Macon, Milan, Unionville, Dearborn and Baring.
A seven-county area from Salem and Rolla, through Lebanon, to Houston and Springfield, remains the driest area in the Ozarks. Rain has fallen both north and south of them. Guinan said.
A band of heavy rainfall, in excess of 6 inches, fell along a 30-mile-wideband on an east-west corridor from Clinton, to St. Louis in late May. Heavy rains also fell in extreme southwestern Missouri and in the Bootheel.
“The Bootheel is now out of the drought,” Guinan said.
“Precipitation amounts have been highly variable during the last month,” he said. “Many areas received between 2 and 4 inches, but a small area in east central Missouri recorded a record 14 inches in nine hours.
“That’s no way to break a drought,” Guinan added. “Heavy rainfall of that nature does more harm than good and is mostly runoff.”
Guinan said a study by Stan Changnon, a climatologist at the Illinois State Water Survey, shows that it takes at least one month of excessive rainfall to end a 12-month drought. “There will be extenuating circumstances,” Guinan said, “But that serves as a good rule of thumb.”
Variability is demonstrated by rainfall in Boone County. During May, at historic Sanborn Field on the MU campus in Columbia, rainfall of 4.96 incheswas recorded. But rainfall at Bradford Farm, an MU research center seven miles east of town, was less than half of that amount.
“Our plots are extremely dry,” Wiebold said.