Drought hits hard in central U.S., stressing crops, raising anxiety
Mike Shane’s Illinois farm got a nice soaking on May 8, shortly after he planted his corn crop. Since then, rain has been hard to come by.
Plenty of storms have ventured close only to fizzle out before making it to Shane’s 200-acre spread near Peoria.
“It comes across the Mississippi River and then just disappears,” Shane, 47, said. “My corn looks absolutely terrible right now.” Without substantial rain soon, “I just don’t see any hope for it,” he said.
Heavy rain over the winter eased the drought in the West, but now the middle of the country is extraordinarily dry. Crops are stressed, rivers are running low, and cities and towns are anxiously hoping for a break in the weather.
Experts say the drought in the central U.S. is the worst since at least 2012, and in some areas, is drawing comparisons to the 1988 drought that devastated corn, wheat and soybean crops. This year, although temperatures have been generally mild through the spring and early days of summer, rainfall has been sorely lacking.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, operated by the federal government and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, reports that nearly half of Kansas is in either extreme or exceptional drought condition — the highest drought designation. More than a quarter of Nebraska is in extreme drought, and 13% is in exceptional drought. Arid conditions permeate Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.
The frequency and intensity of droughts and rainfall are increasing due to burning fossil fuels and other human activity that releases greenhouse gases, according to data from a pair of satellites used to measure changes in Earth’s water storage. The study was published in March in the journal Nature Water.
Adam Hartman, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, said some parts of the central U.S. have been experiencing extreme drought since the winter. In other states, “flash droughts” have popped up over the past 2-3 months.
“As a result you’ve see drastic losses in topsoil, subsoil moisture,” Hartman said. “We’ve seen ground water levels start to lower as well. We’ve seen stream flows start to decline.”
Crops are feeling the impact. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now rates only half of the U.S. corn crop as good or excellent — the lowest percentage since 1988. Nearly two-thirds of the nation’s corn-growing areas are in drought.
“That gives us some indicator that we’re seeing widespread stress on those crops throughout the Corn Belt,” said Krista Swanson, an economist for the National Corn Growers Association.
If rains don’t arrive soon, Swanson believes total yield could be down about 1 billion bushels from the original projection of 16.7 billion bushels.