Drought conditions courtesy of the U.S. Drought Monitor released last week Thursday, Oct. 5. A large portion of Tama County (black box) remains in a D4 ‘exceptional drought’.

TAMA COUNTY – An area of east-central Iowa located in and around Tama County that is suffering from exceptional drought — the worst dryness designation — more than doubled in size last week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Dry conditions were mostly unchanged across the state in the week leading up to Oct. 3 aside from that D4 ‘exceptional’ area, according to a new report that was current as of last Tuesday morning (data is updated each Tuesday, while maps are released on Thursday). The Oct. 5 report does not include the widespread rainfall that fell on the evening of Oct. 3 of at least a half inch in much of western Iowa.

The last week of September/first week of October was largely devoid of significant rainfall, aside from in the counties that border Wisconsin and northern Illinois. A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report said Iowa averaged .21 inches of precipitation, compared with the normally expected seven-tenths of an inch.

Exceptional drought notably expanded east from Tama and Benton counties into most of Linn County. That worst drought designation now touches parts of eight counties including the east side of Tama County, ranging from tiny corners of two counties to nearly all of Benton.

About 96% of the state is suffering from some measure of drought.

A new season outlook from the federal Climate Prediction Center says drought is likely to persist in nearly all of Iowa through the end of the year. That is a more pessimistic view than the center took last month, when it predicted drought conditions might lift from much of the state.