DES MOINES, Iowa -- Near-drought conditions are continuing to spread across Iowa.
"When you come out of a drought, it's pretty easy to flip back and forth, so, it's not surprising that we're seeing abnormal dryness. It did come on pretty quickly, and it's now pretty pervasive across the state," says Iowa Department of Natural Resources Hydrology Resources Coordinator Tim Hall.
This week's US Drought Monitor Map is showing abnormally dry conditions across more than 65 percent of the state--from the Missouri to the Mississippi north of Interstate 80.
There's also a large patch of near-drought over Southwest Iowa with smaller patches in the southeast part of the state.
Hall says the near-drought comes as Iowa will start seeing lower amounts of precipitation--rain or snow--through the rest of the year.
"We're in a month now where we should be seeing three-quarters of an inch of rain a week. By the time we get to December it's a lot lower, then by the time we get to January we don't expect to see an inch of moisture the entire month," he says
After late spring and early summer rainfall that broke a years-long drought, precipitation amounts have diminished across the last couple of months.