Drought Deepens for Entire State, Especially East Central Minnesota
ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- With sporadic rain at best, Minnesota continues to fall deeper into a drought.
The weekly update Thursday from the U.S. Drought Monitor says eight percent of the state is now in a severe drought, up from five percent last week. That is mostly in east central Minnesota including all of Benton and Morrison Counties and the eastern part of Stearns County.
Fifty-seven percent is in a moderate drought, up from 44 percent last week.
And now 98 percent is abnormally dry, up from 92 percent.
St. Cloud has had just .08 of an inch of rain so far in July, already .55 of an inch below normal for the month so far. We've had just 1.62 inches of rain in St. Cloud going back to late April. June was the 3rd driest (.67") in recorded history, and May was the 4th driest (.87").
The normal average amount of rain for May, June and July is just over 11 inches.
The National Weather Service says we could see some rain Friday, but most locations will stay dry and those that do see rain won't get much.
The Climate Prediction Center says the outlook for next week, July 11th through the 14th, does look like we could have above normal precipitation.
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