The Raccoon Valley Radio area drought conditions are starting to trend back into the severe category. 

According to the US Drought Monitor, the majority of Dallas County is in a severe drought except for a portion in the upper northwest corner. Greene County is under a moderate drought, except for a severe drought in the northern tip of the county.  A large portion of Guthrie County is in a moderate drought but the far southern portion is in a severe drought. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says that the drought has dominated headlines this year with all counties in the state being at least abnormally dry and some eastern counties facing extreme droughts. Naig says despite the drought the state has shown it can be resilient. 

“So I do think that there will be some yield reduction because of that dryness in some parts of the state just because it got too hot and too dry all at the same time. But I think by and large, what I’m hearing already is folks would say the yields are better than they expected it to be, which is good news, but that won’t be universally true. I think we’re probably going to use the word variability a lot this year when it comes to yield.”

According to the National Weather Service in the month of September, Guthrie Center reported 2.86 inches of rainfall, Jefferson has seen 2.64 inches of rain and Perry gained 1.41 inches of rain.