Dryness Creeping East As Drought Re-Enters Four Missouri Counties
January 20, 2023 12:55PM CST
Drought conditions in Missouri as of January 17th 2023. (The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC.)
Moderate drought returned to parts of four Missouri counties in the past week. The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor indicates a resumption of the first stage of drought conditions in central and western Audrain County, along with northern Callaway and southern Monroe counties. Southwestern Reynolds County also returned to moderate drought, while northern Texas and Reynolds, central Iron, westernmost Lincoln, Pike and Warren counties fell into abnormal dryness.
A pair of severe drought patches along Missouri’s western border remained unchanged from last week, staying at 16 percent of the state’s land area. Moderate drought is now up to n9.6 percent of the state, while abnormal dryness covers 49.1 percent of Missouri.
