DES MOINES, Iowa -- November is going into the record books as one of the driest months ever in Iowa.
"November typically brings us two inches of rain across the state, and that would have been nice to have. In the end--less than four-tenths of an inch of rain on a statewide average," says Iowa Department of Natural Resources Hydrology Resources Coordinator Tim Hall.
He says there are some places in the state that got essentially zero rain in the entire month.
"We would expect a couple of systems to roll through and at least drop a couple of tenths of an inch of rain, but to go an entire 30 days with barely a trace is just a phenomenally dry month," Hall says.
Hall also says the state is running out of time for locking-in some soil moisture before the ground freezes for winter.
"There's very little evaporation or water use going on right now with soil moisture, so anything that we can stick in the ground before it freezes will be there for us in the spring," he says.
Hall says November's dry conditions also resulted in further degradation of the drought conditions in the southern half of Iowa, along with the current U.S. Drought Monitor designation of moderate to severe drought.