New Ohio Drought Monitor: Better for Mahoning Valley, bad news for Ohio

The latest drought report came out this morning and most of the Valley remains under moderate drought conditions. However northeastern Trumbull County and southeastern Columbiana County have decreased to only dry conditions.

In the last week, afternoon thunderstorms have helped out the area in dumping over two inches of rain in some towns in a single day. This is good news but thunderstorms only produce localized downpours and don't help the region as a whole.

While the Valley is improving, Ohio has gotten worse in the last week. Abnormally dry conditions now cover over 75 percent of the state. This is up from only 70 percent a week ago. On top of this, the coverage area of the moderate drought has increased from 26 percent to 33 percent.

Ohio hasn't seen this type of moderate drought since October 2012. The National Drought Mitigation Center says that if the drought continues we could start to see some damage to crops and pastures. Also under these conditions streams, reservoirs, or wells could become low and some water shortages may develop.

Though with the showers and storms in the forecast for the next couple of days we can only hope that conditions continue to improve. The bottom line is that we need the rain to continue and throughout most Ohio.