We are in the midst of a serious drought in central Minnesota. We are well into July and only due to some well timed rain, the crops are in fairly good shape. However, that only masks the true problem - and that can be seen by visiting one of the hundreds of lakes that dot the landscape in East Central Minnesota and West Central Wisconsin.
One of my favorite weather guessers that was on one of the twin cities TV stations (he is long gone now) said during the drought of 1988 that "getting out of drought is like getting out of debt - both take a while". As it stands right now, we need lots of rain for lots of days (or in Minnesota speak, "lotsa"). We are down 6 inches of moisture this year (and were down last year as well) and need inches to fall for many days in this traditionally dry month of July. I am reminded that in 1987 when we were having a somewhat dry year, we had the "super storm" in July which dropped over 7 inches of rain on the twin cities. All of a sudden, 1987 went from dry to moist. However, to really fix the problem, we need much rain to fall slowly to soak well into the ground.
When I was fishing in Western Wisconsin two weeks ago, my friend and I went to Silver Lake (which we have fished on for many years). We like Silver Lake as it not only has a beautiful shore line, but we have also done well there in fishing for Bass. When we got to the lake it was jaw dropping. It looked like a picture of the reservoirs out west. The level of the lake was down over 4 feet! When talking to one of the locals at the boat landing, he told us that the lake was at historically low levels right now - even lower than the dust bowl days of the 30's.
We can debate why the water level is so low this year. It could be man made climate change or this could be a natural cycle. In any event, it is here and the only way out is to have rain - lotsa rain for lotsa days.
One of my favorite weather guessers that was on one of the twin cities TV stations (he is long gone now) said during the drought of 1988 that "getting out of drought is like getting out of debt - both take a while". As it stands right now, we need lots of rain for lots of days (or in Minnesota speak, "lotsa"). We are down 6 inches of moisture this year (and were down last year as well) and need inches to fall for many days in this traditionally dry month of July. I am reminded that in 1987 when we were having a somewhat dry year, we had the "super storm" in July which dropped over 7 inches of rain on the twin cities. All of a sudden, 1987 went from dry to moist. However, to really fix the problem, we need much rain to fall slowly to soak well into the ground.
When I was fishing in Western Wisconsin two weeks ago, my friend and I went to Silver Lake (which we have fished on for many years). We like Silver Lake as it not only has a beautiful shore line, but we have also done well there in fishing for Bass. When we got to the lake it was jaw dropping. It looked like a picture of the reservoirs out west. The level of the lake was down over 4 feet! When talking to one of the locals at the boat landing, he told us that the lake was at historically low levels right now - even lower than the dust bowl days of the 30's.
We can debate why the water level is so low this year. It could be man made climate change or this could be a natural cycle. In any event, it is here and the only way out is to have rain - lotsa rain for lotsa days.
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