'Half of what we should be:' Drought expands in Ohio as rain totals remain below normal

Ohio is crispy this summer.

Of the state's 88 counties, 67 were listed as being affected by abnormally dry conditions when the U.S. Drought Monitor received its weekly update Thursday morning.

About half of the Buckeye State's counties are under a D1 Moderate Drought.

Portions of 18 counties are experiencing a D2 Severe Drought.

The parched conditions have been building for about three months, according to Alexa Maines, a meteorologist who works in the Cleveland office of the National Weather Service.

"It's been a long-term trend," Maines said. "The long-term trends matter because not only are you affecting soil moisture, but then you're starting to affect the reservoirs and the groundwater."

'Under half of what we should be for the month'

The D1 Moderate Drought stretched from Northeast Ohio into the North Central Ohio counties of Richland, Ashland and Wayne.

The weather service's instruments at Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport had only collected 1.04 inches of rain through this week, a figure that would have reached an average of 2.78 inches during a typical July.

"So it's about 1¾ of an inch lower than normal," Maines said. "We're under half of what we should be for the month so far."

Since meteorological summer began on June 1, Mansfield has only received 2.57 inches of rain.

"The average is exactly 5 inches higher at 7.57 inches," Maines said. "So again, Mansfield's only gotten just about ⅓ of what it should it have so far this season."

'Moderate to severe drought was expanded'

This week's report on the U.S. Drought Monitor noted the Midwest had cooled to a range of 1-9 degrees below average for this time of year.

"Precipitation was also below normal across much of the Midwest, resulting in the expansion and intensification of drought in eastern parts of the region," the drought report reads.

Unfortunately for Ohioans, that included large portions of the Buckeye State.

"Moderate to severe drought was expanded in parts of eastern and southern Ohio," the report reads.

'We could make up for the precipitation deficit'

The abnormally dry conditions have been growing over several weeks and cannot likely be corrected with only one rainshower.

"I mean one good rain can definitely be helpful," Maines said. "But in cases where it's really dry, if you get a ton of rain at once, for example from like a thunderstorm that dumps 2 inches of rain really quickly, even in like an hour, the ground is so dry that it's not going to be able to soak up all that moisture, so it's just going to run off and not be absorbed into the soil."

Slow and steady rains are a better option.

"What we like to see is either several days of heavy rain over one spot, or kind of one of those strata forms, so widespread rainy days where every place gets a couple inches of rain," Maines said.

Ohio's next best chance of a significant rainfall appears to be sometime early next week.

"It's summer, so in a lot of cases it will be scattered thunderstorms," Maines said.

Extended outlooks show that temperatures and precipitation could remain above normal the rest of summer.

"So if we do manage to get a bunch of rounds of showers and thunderstorms, that might help," Maines said. "For the seasonal outlook, which includes July 18th through October 31, it says that drought removal is likely, so there's a decent chance that at some point we could make up for the precipitation deficit and remove the droughts."

ztuggle@gannett.com

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This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: 'Half of what we should be:' Drought expands in Ohio as rain totals remain below normal