Midwest Overview - August, 2003

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August 2003 was again another eventful month in the Midwest. Moderate to extreme drought spread from the Great Plains into the western Midwest, as very little rain fell for about four weeks. The precipitation totals for August 1 to 27 were less than 1.5 inches in most of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois (Figure 1). By the end of the month, an extreme rain event related to the arrival of tropical moisture was moving into Missouri and central Illinois and Indiana, and part of this precipitation is seen in the monthly total (Figure 2). While most of the precipitation was recorded in the September reporting period, the rain event which started on the 30th in earnest was very helpful to drought stricken areas in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. Unfortunately, the same rain caused major flooding in Indiana, which was still wet from previous inundation by the July flooding rain event. Finally, Iowa and large parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois received less than 50% of normal precipitation for the month (Figure 3), having missed completely the storms starting late in the period. Iowa had its 2nd driest August, and Minnesota its 4th driest. It was also warm for the month in the Midwest, with temperatures up to 5°F above normal in parts of the western Midwest (Figure 4). A heat wave between the 15th and 22nd claimed 3 lives in Kansas City, MO. The combination of dry soils and heat resulted in important and, in places, catastrophic losses of crop yield. The corn quality in Iowa, for instance, declined from 78% rated good or excellent on August 3 to 36% with the same rating on August 31. Drought reached its most widespread and severe stage to date in the Midwest in the August 26 US Drought Monitor map (Figure 5, National Drought Mitigation Center). The improvement in Missouri at the end of the month is far outweighed by the continued deterioration of conditions in the core of the western and central Corn Belt.