Insider Blog: Although the drought recedes, its impacts still remain

With the latest drought monitor update, only 72% of Missouri remains in some sort of drought condition. Comparing this to just a month ago, on July 18th, where 95% of Missouri was experiencing drought conditions, this is a substantial drop. While this is good news, the impacts over the summer are irreversible.

With the lack of rainfall over the summer, the agriculture business as a whole in Missouri has struggled. Whether that be crop damage, selling cattle, having to buy products at a much higher price, or using material that is not normally used at this time of the year, the drought has made a strong impact.

This substantial rainfall has helped the past couple of weeks in the agriculture business, which can again be observed by taking a look at our drought monitor, but the side effects are still sticking around. Taking a look at the 8-14 day outlook for precipitation, we are unfortunately trending a little drier than normal. This is thanks to a high pressure system that will be bringing higher than normal temperatures for this time of the year, and of course keeping Mid-MO from seeing much rain. As for the 3 month outlook, trends are pointing towards slightly wetter conditions which could help, but only time will tell.