Drought — Koochiching, Minnesota

2023-09-01 to 2023-09-30 · Koochiching, Minnesota

Event narrative

D2 Severe Drought conditions were in place across far southwestern Koochiching County to begin the month. Rainfall for the month was roughly near normal across the county with far northwestern areas trending a bit below normal as much of the remainder of the county saw slightly above normal rainfall. Most if this rainfall fell over the latter half of the month. There was a slight expansion of the area of D2 Severe Drought across the southwestern quarter of the county with the update on the 5th followed by a reduction to just the far southwest corner with the update on the 26th. The remainder of the county remained in D1 Moderate Drought throughout the month.

Wider weather episode

Drought conditions persisted across northeastern Minnesota to begin September with D3 Extreme Drought stretching from the Brainerd Lakes area into the I-35 corridor. Two heavy rainfall events impacted the region during the month leading to many areas receiving 200 to 300 percent of normal rainfall for the month, especially in areas seeing the worst of the drought conditions. This led to drought improvement across much of the region with D3 Extreme Drought becoming confined to northern Cass County by the end of the month as much of the North Shore and Arrowhead improved to D0 Abnormally Dry.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1141227. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.