Drought — Northern Cass, Minnesota

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

Event narrative

The northern portion of Cass County was mainly covered by D2 Severe Drought with far southern areas in D3 Extreme Drought to begin the month. Rainfall for the month was around a inch below normal for areas north of Leech Lake while it was around an inch over normal over southern areas. With lingering dry conditions from August, D3 Extreme Drought expanded across all of northern Cass County with the update on the 5th. Rainfall during the middle of the month led to a reduction in the area of D3 Extreme Drought with the update on the 26th leaving the northwestern three-quarters of the area in D3 Extreme Drought with D2 Severe Drought elsewhere. 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 1141230. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.