Minnesota Flooding Responsible for Indiana Drought
Posted
Daniel Riordan-driordan@timesuniononline.com
While this year’s drought has been tough on corn crops, conditions have not yet reached those seen in 1988.
That is a benchmark year for people like Ken Scheeringa.
He is an associate climatologist with Purdue University.
He said that flooding in places like Minnesota and copious amounts of rains in Florida are all related to Indiana’s dry weather.
“We’ve had persistent high pressure centers,” said Scheeringa. “It’s shut off the supply of moisture.”
So even when storms are moving through the area they don’t have enough moisture to carry over hundreds of miles, and dry out by the time they reach Kosciusko County.
That affects things like corn production.
Also many areas of Kosciusko County are on sand and high ground that don’t retain water as well as clay or low ground.
Scheeringa said 1988 is the year they use as a benchmark, and that before that records would have to go back to the 1930s to see such dry conditions.
He said this year hasn’t reached 1988 levels yet because there have been breaks in warm weather.
“We’ve had breaks in our temperature patterns,” said Scheeringa. “That’s really the difference. We don’t have heat that is simply scorching the earth.”
He also said advances in technology and more farms using irrigation systems have helped.
But corn yields are still precarious.
And with no rain expected in the area until at least late this week, things may only get worse.
