The weekly update to the US Drought Monitor was released Thursday morning and while most of Iowa is drought free, pockets of dryness continue to fester over northcentral and northwestern Iowa. One of the driest long term reporting locations as of late has been Spencer. The featured chart presents a number of precipitation metrics for the site. The individual graphs are best interpreted by reading them right to left as they display trailing period metrics for the plotted date up until 9 July. The right side (near term) values are a bit noisy as a recent rainfall event skews metrics over a short duration of time. The bottom left panel plot is probably the most informative as it plots standardized precipitation index (SPI) with the associated drought thresholds. Departures do not get too far out of hand until you reach back into early fall 2025.

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