Recent rains lift most of Lafayette area out of moderate drought
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Rain across the Greater Lafayette area eased the moderate drought, except for Fountain County and parts of Parke, Montgomery and Vermillion counties.
“We’ve been getting really lucky with some timely rains all throughout the state. There’s certainly some winners and losers when we look really closely as specific counties," said Melissa Widhalm, a climatologist with the Midwestern Regional Climate Center at Purdue University. "But from a broad stroke, we are really in a lot better shape than we were earlier.”
The winners are most of the state. The losers — when it comes to too little or too much rain — appear to be that sliver of counties southwest of Tippecanoe County that are still in a moderate drought and the area in southern Indiana around Patoka Lake, where Widhalm said they received 6 inches of rain the first week of this month. They received 3.8 inches of rain in one day at Patoka Lake.
Last month the Journal & Courier interviewed Widhalm when the July 7 U.S. Drought Monitor ranked 94% of Indiana as abnormally dry or in a moderate drought.
Earlier: Forecasted rain won't lift area out of moderate drought
“We did get a lot of rain in the early part of the year," Widhalm said. "It's a time of year when we aren’t needing as much water for crops, for stream flows, for yard watering.
"Then we got really dry in late May and early June," she said. “Then the rains picked up a little bit these last few weeks. We’ve been getting some timely rains.”
Asked about Lafayette's rain deficit for the year, Mike Ryan, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Indianapolis, said, “Right now, we’re down about 8 ½ inches for the year.”
In Indianapolis, there's about a 4-inch deficit in precipitation, Ryan said.
The timely rains helped, so it doesn't feel like we're 8.5 inches below the normal 23.27 inches of precipitation we should have received between January and the end of July, Widhalm said.
A month ago, the corn crops looked distressed. That's turned around, she said.
“What I’ve been hearing is that we did lose some yield statewide just with how dry the conditions were in June and July," Widhalm said. "But we’re still expecting good yields.”
“When we look at the percent that is in fair, good or excellent condition, it’s most of the corn in the state," Widhalm said. “Right now, we have just 15% of the corn looking at poor or very poor.
“We might have taken a bit of a yield penalty, but we’re not going to see devastating losses. We should be in pretty good shape. Maybe not your best year ever, but still a pretty darn good year.”
Going forward, the best scenario for the crops are timely rains, but not a deluge, Widhalm said. The corn needs to begin to dry on the stalk. Too dry, Widhalm said, and the yield will suffer. Too wet and the farmers will have to pay to have the corn dried by machines after the harvest.
“We’re in the cornbelt. We grow corn here for a reason," she said. "We have some pretty favorable range of conditions that we can tolerate.”
The week-long forecast looks promising for just that.
The best chance of rain for the area was expected Saturday night or early Sunday, Ryan said. Then the temperatures are expected to be near normal — upper 70s to low 80s. And the humidity is supposed to be low, Ryan said, noting it should be comfortable.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Recent rains lift most of Lafayette area out of moderate drought
