Drought Conditions make their way into Rowan County

Well it's not quite as dry as the cover photo shows but as of the latest drought monitor update. Abnormally dry conditions have returned to parts of the county.

As you can see from the above photo abnormally dry conditions have been reported in the Cleveland area and northwest Rowan County. What does abnormally dry mean? Basically it's current impacts and those are as follows.

Going into drought:

• short-term dryness slowing planting, growth of crops or pastures

Coming out of drought:

• some lingering water deficits
• pastures or crops not fully recovered

Let's take a look at rainfall for that area through the end of May.

So from January 1st of this year through the end of May a total of 14.83 inches of rain fell in the northwest corner of the county near Cleveland.

Since June 1st

There has been a total of 2.66 inches of rain for the Cleveland area.

How does that stack up versus normals for the year in that area?

Cleveland is currently 3.6 inches below normal for rainfall on the year. Not anything insurmountable by any means. Once good soaking rain knocks this abnormally dry condition out. This is just a matter of monitoring at this point and creating awareness that drier conditions are returning to the county.

I will continue to keep you updated on this story as it develops and advise if the conditions are spreading or have improved over the coming weeks.

As always thank you for following Rowan County Weather!