Cooler temperatures and rain continues

After another rainy start to the week, some of you may be ready for a few dry days to get out in the garden or field to start planting.  Figure 1 shows how much rain has fallen over the past 30 days and Figure 2 shows how many inches above or below normal those amounts are compared to the 1991-2020 average.  The 30-day accumulation totals may have seemed high, April and May are wetter months in Indiana.  Therefore, while there are places across the state that have received more than 1 inches above normal over the past 30 days, there are many locations that that are still significantly behind.  For example, southwestern Indiana is still over 2 inches behind normal amounts.  These last two weeks have helped, and more rain is in our forecast, so conditions should continue to improve in the short term.  However, while vegetation and soils may seem healthy and wet, our groundwater levels still have a bit to recover from.  Figure 3 shows the latest U.S. Drought monitor continuing to have far southern Indiana in Abnormally Dry (D0) conditions with a small area along the Ohio River  in Moderate Drought (D1).  This is mostly due to recent storm tracks missing these areas and therefore long-term moisture deficits having a greater impact.

Looking ahead, precipitation totals over the next 7 days (May 7-14) is predicting between 0.25” to 1.00” more rain with higher amounts in southern Indiana and an east-west swath across north-central Indiana (Figure 4).  There is a chance of precipitation are almost every day.  The 6-to-14-day (May 12-20) climate outlook will have these cooler-than-normal temperatures gradually moving off toward New England with a slight chance of above-normal temperatures entering Indiana by the end of that period.  Precipitation is slightly favored to be above normal early within this period with conditions returning to more normal amounts later within the month.