Severe Thunderstorm Warning expires at 5:45 PM on 5/22, issued at 4:48 PM Alder Creek, NY | Apulia Station, NY | Ava, NY | Baldwinsville, NY

U.S. Drought update....(6-14-12)

Images

A wildfire continues to rage outside Fort Collins, CO (RJ Sangosti, Denver Post)

High Park Wildfire near High Park, CO (RJ Sangosti, Denver Post)

Reported by: Jim Teske

Email: stormteam@9wsyr.com

Print Story

Published: 6/14/2012 5:22 pm

Updated: 6/14/2012 5:28 pm

There was some good and bad news on the drought front last week across parts of the country. First the good news. You may have heard about the heavy rain that fell over the Gulf Coast last weekend. Pensacola had more than a foot of rain in 24 hours! A number of spots along the Gulf Coast ended up with more than 6 inches of rain as this map from NOAA shows.

Here are the last two Drought Monitors for the Southeast. The latest one came out this morning.

At first glance the change may seem subtle but if you look at the chart which shows each category of drought the change is more dramatic. The worst drought categories (D3 & D4) saw a decrease of more than 50%

Meanwhile rain has been lacking over the Rockies and the drought out there in not receding. If anything the conditions are getting worse.

This is aggravating the wildfires, especially over Colorado and New Mexico where thousands of acres have been burned so far and smoke from the fires are hanging over cities like Denver and Fort Collins. One of the wildfires outside of Fort Collins had burned 50,000 acres as of Thursday afternoon and over 1,000 firefighters were fighting this wildfire that was only 10 % contained.

Print Story

Current Conditions

	86°	Wind	Feels Like
		W 6 mph	87°

Local forecast (enter city):

Click Here for a Live Stream of Live Doppler 9

Large Doppler Image | Doppler Loop

Interactive Radar

Watch Full Forecast | Get the Weather Widget

This site is hosted and managed by Inergize Digital.
Mobile advertising for this site is available on Local Ad Buy.