CLEVELAND — The new Drought Monitor was released on Thursday as we kick off the month of August.
Despite some rain this week, the monitor doesn’t really show improvement for Northeast Ohio. If anything, there is an increase in “Moderate Drought” for areas along the borders of Ashtabula and Trumbull counties as well as portions of Portage, Stark, Tuscarawas, and Carroll Counties.
Why is that?
To understand the reason, we need some details about the Drought Monitor. The Drought Monitor comes out each Thursday. However, the data it represents comes from Tuesday numbers. That means depending on the timing of rain, there can be a delay in seeing the improvement on the Monitor.
We have had more rain falling this week. Some areas have picked up well over 1” of rain! However, not all of that has yet been registered in the data today’s Drought Monitor reflects. Next week’s update is more likely to show improvement, since it will factor in ALL of this week’s rain.
Another factor is that we still have quite a deficit to overcome. Hopkins was running over 5” below average for the last 3 months before we entered this more active week. One day of good rain isn’t enough to erase that whole deficit and take us out of drought concerns. More rain is still needed to really see that change.
We do have more rain potential for the rest of this week and we could see additional rain into next week. This should be reflected in next week's update.
