Illinois State Water Survey Illinois State Climatologist

Year to Date – Cool and Wet in Illinois

It is probably not shocking news to find out that the first 8 months of 2014 have been both cooler and wetter than average for Illinois. The statewide average temperature for January-August was 50.8 degrees, 3.5 degrees below the 1981-2010 average and tied with 1924 as the fifth coolest on record. The statewide average precipitation for […]

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Dryness Across Northern and Central Illinois

After a wet start to the 2014 growing season, we have seen a significant drop in rainfall across parts of northern and central Illinois in the last few weeks. Here is the 30-day rainfall as a percent of average. Areas in the orange are 25 to 75 percent of average while the areas in red […]

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Thursday Highlights – Drought Monitor and El Nino Forecast

Here are two highlights for today: U.S. Drought Monitor After some concerns of dryness over the last several months in parts of Illinois, the conditions across Illinois were much wetter in the last two weeks. Rainfall totals were especially heavy south of Interstate 72 and ranged from 3 to 8 inches or more (see map […]

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