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 The
four consecutive months of below normal precipitation in April, May,
June and July of 2022 sent Logan County’s drought monitor status (drought.gov)
into the Moderately Dry (D1) level. That was the highest drought
status for the year.
A wave of rain in early August helped put a serious dent in that
deficit, when 3.21 inches of rain fell from August 1st to August
3rd. However, additional below normal precipitation occurred in
September, October, and November, sending Logan County into the
Winter of 2022-2023 in a precipitation deficit compared to normal.
The drought monitor had Logan County in the Abnormally Dry (D0)
category. Due to climatologically less chances of thunderstorms and
heavy rainfall in winter, typically, that status can persist through
a winter season.
While the NWS in Lincoln recorded an early snowfall of a trace on
October 17th and some mid-November snowfall of 0.8 inches, there was
a general lack of snowfall for a majority of December.
Mother Nature did throw an impactfully strong storm at the area just
before Christmas. Blizzard-like conditions did occur across central
Illinois, even though measurable snowfall from the event only added
up to 1.5 inches at the NWS office in Lincoln. It could have been
that some of the snow may have just blown away after falling due to
northwest winds gusting to 40-50 mph.
Early outlooks for that storm
from the computer models showed central Illinois targeted for up to
8 to 12 inches of snow during that event. But alas, the low-pressure
system did not follow those outlooks and the heavy snow fell in
other areas of the Midwest and Great Lakes areas. Besides that
storm, not much other snow occurred in December. The month ended
with just 1.8 inches of snowfall which was 3.1 inches below normal.
However, enough rain occurred in December to push Lincoln to above
normal precipitation for the month by 0.45 inches, and the drought
monitor improved in Logan County to no ‘abnormally dry’ (D0 -
yellow) areas identified on January 1st, 2023.
January and February are when Lincoln and Logan County typically see
the majority (62%) of the snowfall for the winter season. While
January had periodic snowfall events through the month, most of the
weather systems were weak only producing minor snow accumulations.
One major snowstorm was forecast for January 25th, but warm air and
warm ground reduced snow amounts, and Lincoln only picked up 2.1
inches of snow from that event. The total snow for the month ended
up at 3.9 inches, which was 1.8 inches below normal. There were a
couple of rain events in January too, but overall, January’s
precipitation fell below normal, reversing the December ‘trend’ of
above normal precipitation. As a result, the drought monitor
indicated that abnormally dry (D0) conditions returned to Logan
County for all but the last few days of January.
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The late month storm was
enough to pull Logan County out of the drought status and February
started off with no drought conditions defined on the drought
monitor. February did not see any snow until the 16th and 17th, when
trace snow amounts were recorded. An additional trace of snow was
recorded on Feb 24th, which closed out the snowfall in Lincoln for
February.
February 2023 went into the records as the second least snowy
February on record in Lincoln, behind only February 1987 when no
snow at all was recorded. Most days in the month were dry, but one
significant rain event pushed the precipitation total above normal
for the month. A record daily rainfall of 3.40 inches occurred on
February 22nd, causing flooding across Lincoln and Logan County.
Roads were covered, ditches and farm fields were flooded, and most
likely many basements were affected as well. Normal liquid
equivalent of precipitation for ALL of February is 1.92 inches, and
that one storm system nearly doubled that. Needless to say, drought
conditions did not return in February and will likely be staved off
for a couple months down the road.
One thing that helped the soil moisture to get replenished this
winter was the fact that the frost depth was non-existent for a vast
majority of the winter. That allowed any rainfall and melted
snowfall to filtrate into the ground. We did have one big cold snap
in late December which put the frost depth down to 6 inches in
Lincoln at one point. However, that quickly melted off in January
when high temperatures were in the 50s and low 60s the first three
days of the month.
Typically, any winter rains that occur hit a frost layer and run-off
into the creeks and streams, bypassing the groundwater replenishment
cycle. This year’s warm winter allowed nearly all rainfall events to
seep into the ground and provide additional support against drought
conditions persisting through the winter season.
The current monthly and seasonal outlooks from the Climate
Prediction Center show above normal precipitation trends all the way
into the summer, so hopefully the Logan County drought concerns will
be minimal for quite some time.
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