Drought — Northern Itasca, Minnesota

2023-09-01 to 2023-09-30 · Northern Itasca, Minnesota

Event narrative

The northern portion of Itasca County was a mix of D2 Severe Drought and D1 Moderate Drought to begin the month. Roughly the western half of northern Itasca County was in D2 Severe Drought. Rainfall for the month was around a inch below normal across most of the area with the far northwestern corner seeing slightly above normal rainfall. With lingering dry conditions from August, D2 Severe Drought expanded across all of northern Itasca County with the update on the 5th. A very small area of D3 Extreme Drought was added at this time along the Mississippi River as well. Rainfall during the middle of the month led to a drastic reduction in the area of D2 Severe Drought with the update on the 26th leaving only the far western quarter of the area in D2 Severe Drought. A very small area of D3 Extreme Drought remained in the far southwest corner of northern Itasca County adjacent to Lake Winnibigoshish. No additional changes were noted over the last few days of 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 1141228. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.