August may be second-driest ever

The Illinois State Water Survey says this may be the second-driest August on record.

And the dry weather is beginning to worry farmers.

Rainfall has been limited to just 4-5 days this month. It's the second-lowest amount in the 124-year history of some record-keeping in east-central Illinois.

The National Weather Service is forecasting hot and dry weather, with highs in the 90s, every day through Sunday.
State climatologist Jim Angel reports only August 1893 — with 6-hundredths of an inch of rain — was drier,

According to the Aug. 20 U.S. Drought Monitor, Champaign County and most of East Central Illinois were considered "abnormally dry" — the lowest level on the drought scale.
Last August was wetter than normal, with 5.56 inches of rain. It followed an usually parched June and July, when only 2.89 inches of rain fell, including 61-hundredths of an inch in July. It was the third driest July in local weather history.

This summer has been almost the opposite, with an above-average 6.27 inches in June and a near normal 3.53 inches in July.

That likely will mean reduced yields in farm fields.

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