The weather will soon get more active. That said, Sven Sundgaard has a terrific writeup for you on the severe storm potential Friday and to wrap up the weekend in the morning version of Updraft.
For Thursday afternoon, the three of us on the MPR Weather staff thought you might want to learn more about the expanding drought. We, in turn, wanted to learn from you.
Let’s start with the CMOR. That means Condition Monitoring Observer Reports. And that means the ground truth from what you all are seeing across Minnesota.
In Duluth, we turn to an extremely knowledgeable observer who goes by “apanda,” who’s been around for well over a decade. They report:
- Wilting on annual flowers/crops/vegetables
- Leaf scorch on annual flowers/crops/vegetables
- Increased supplemental irrigation
- Wilting on perennial flowers/shrubs
- Dry lawn (browning in growth season)
- Dusty/cracked soil
In addition, they say animals are struggling to find their own clean water and that creek gauges are extremely low…