Rain from Isaac Offers Only Slight Improvement in Drought Conditions

By Newsroom America Staff at 4 Sep 2012

(Newsroom America) -- Rains from Hurricane Isaac that spread throughout the Midwest last week after making landfall along the Gulf Coast managed to ease drought conditions somewhat, but not nearly enough to reverse a months-long dearth of moisture that ravaged crops this year.

"It's not going to be drought-busting rainfall, but it certainly is beneficial," said Chris Vaccaro of the National Weather Service, according to USA Today, which reported that some regions of the nation's breadbasket received as much as six inches of rain.

But the rainfall was mostly too little, too late to save crops this year, as farmers helplessly watched drought conditions ravage hundreds of thousands of acres of corn, soybeans and other commodities over the summer.

"Corn needed to have water in May, June and July, and it just wasn't there," Brian Loving, a U.S. Geological Service hydrologist in Lawrence, Kan., told the paper.

"We've already missed the growing season, so even if we had 6 inches of rain, anything that needed to grow has already died," he said.

Isaac dumped as much as three inches of rain in parts of Missouri and Illinois, but the storm only brushed Kansas, Loving noted.

Normal rainfall for much of the Midwest by this time of year is 29 inches; this year, however, only about 17 inches have fallen.

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