What impact does recent rain have on 2021 drought?
SOUTH DAKOTA (Dakota News Now) - The first six months of 2021, and even dating back to the end of last year, was extremely dry in South Dakota. Many counties implemented burn bans and other safety measures to avoid fire dangers. Turner County put a burn ban in place at the end of June. For us, it entails no burning fire pits, burning barrels, fence lines, ditches, etc., said Turner County Emergency Manager Brad Georgeson. However, as of Tuesday, the burn ban is not in effect, thanks to recent rains that have lessened the threat of fire danger. Im not going to say that the rain that we got was adequate throughout the county, however, they seemed to be enough to sustain that our burn ban could be taken off for an unknown amount of time at this point. It allows the farmers to get out there and do a little bit of cleaning if they need to, get their burn pits knocked back down again, Georgeson said. Georgeson adds that he uses information from the National Weather Service and conversations with local firefighters to help make burn ban decisions. But even with rain lately, regional weather expert Doug Kluck says it takes more than a few scattered showers to overturn a drought. Youve got a drought established right, and then youve improved things a bit but that can only last so long so what we really want to see is, were going to go through another dry spell for the next 7, 10 maybe 14 days but you really want to see it come back again, said Kluck, whos the Central Region Climate Services Director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. However, as good as the recent rain is Kluck says the dry weather on the way in the near future could put a drought back on the radar. A week of no rain, could probably live with that but then you get back into the deficit thing where you start over extracting too much water and evaporating, Kluck said. Which could bring back the burn ban. It could go back on as early as next week, and we may be able to subside it until who knows when of a future date of some type to be determined yet, said Georgeson. Georgeson says that if those in Turner County plan on having any large-scale burns, he encourages them to call 605-764-2664 to let fire personnel know for safety reasons. Copyright 2021 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.