(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Less than a third of Iowa has drought • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]

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Date: 2024-05 

The state’s dryness has subsided to a level comparable with about a year ago, and less than a third of Iowa now has drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

A Thursday report — which is a snapshot of the conditions two days before — said about 27% of the state has some measure of drought. That’s down from about 97% in September, when the dryness was the worst it had been in a decade.

Soil conditions have been buoyed by weeks of wet weather. The state averaged 1.51 inches of rain last week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is about 50% more than is typically expected.

Almost all of the remaining drought resides in the northeast quadrant of the state, and most of that drought is classified as “severe.”

About 92% of the topsoil in farm fields has adequate or surplus moisture for growing crops, the USDA reported Monday. About 79% of the fields’ subsoil is similarly saturated.

Most of the state is expected to get at least an inch of rainfall in the next week, according to the National Weather Service. Those totals might exceed two inches in parts of northern and eastern Iowa.

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