STILL IN NEED OF RAIN....

Even though we've had bouts of active weather in the Midwest we have been lacking widespread, heavy rain. We also tend to go for a week or even weeks at a time without a drop of water. This has resulted in the current drought monitor looking like this:

Zoomed in on Iowa:

Over 7% of Iowa is experiencing extreme drought, and about 8% of the Midwest in total is in that extreme drought category. Over 1% of the Midwest is included it the highest level - exceptional drought.

Cedar Rapids is currently sitting at the 3rd driest year to-date, behind 1988 and 1910. The Quad Cities is actually sitting at the 6th driest to-date.

Right now high pressure is hanging around, along with lower humidity, which will lead to a dry next couple of days:

In fact, there likely won't be much precipitation through Thursday:

The next chance for rain will come with a storm system around the Friday/Saturday timeframe:

It's really too soon to know location, coverage, and intensity of it all but it is our next chance. The good news is that rain chances are expected to stay slightly elevated through the end of the month:

Hopefully we can get more rain around here before the fall weather truly sets in.

RK