NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — After another dry week across Tennessee, it is no surprise that the latest drought monitor shows widespread severe and extreme drought.
News 2 spoke with Assistant State Climatologist William Tollefson to learn more about the drought monitor and when we might see some drought improvements. Tollefson said the drought monitor is updated every Thursday by folks at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He said each state has a climate office that submits recommendations on how the new drought monitor should look.
“We pore over the data for the week, make our recommendations and look at what Kentucky, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri and what everyone around us is also seeing, so we can try to be on the same page,” Tollefso said.
Tollefson said the current drought that all of Tennessee and most of the Southeast is experiencing is caused by below-average rainfall going back to last year. He said the recent extremely dry stretch is causing it to worsen fast.
“We’ve had decent rains, especially in the wintertime, but the deficits have started to pile up over the season, and once we got to the warmer weather, and once the leaves come out on the trees, they start pulling a lot more moisture, and we’ve seen a really rapid drying of soil moisture, drops in creek levels and things like that all across the Southeast,” Tollefson told News 2…