Illinois Drought: Update – October 5, 2005, Illinois State Water Survey

NOTICE - WARM has moved. Please update your links (replace 'www' in the URL with 'warm' or follow this link). Thank you.

So far, October has not seen the relief needed from the current drought situation. As of October 26, state-wide rainfall is 1.30 inches compared to normal October rainfall of 2.87 inches. This is 1.57 inches below normal (45 percent of normal). As a result, the statewide precipitation departure has increased to 8.2 inches below normal since March 1, 2005. Daily updates of the conditions since March 1 can be found at: http://www.sws.uiuc.edu/atmos/statecli/Dry2005/Dry2005.htm

Figure 4. Ten driest March through September periods
in Illinois (since 1895)

Rank Year Precip (in)

1	1988	15.41
2	1930	16.13
3	1901	16.77
4	1914	18.11
5	1936	18.49
6	2005	18.56
7	1940	19.05
8	1971	19.49
9	1895	20.06
10	1953	20.49

Figure 5. Rankings of driest March through September periods within
Illinois climate divisions (since 1895)

Climate divisions 2005 rank top 4 driest years

Northwest	2	1988, 2005, 1971, 1930
Northeast	1	2005, 1934, 1988, 1946
West	2 (tie)	1988, 1901, 2005, 1971
Central	3	1988, 1901, 2005, 1914
East	18	1988, 1895, 1930, 1932
West-Southwest	6	1914, 1988, 1930, 1901
East-Southeast	13	1930, 1914, 1988, 1901
Southwest	33	1930, 1936, 1901, 1914
Southeast	33	1930, 1936, 1901, 1940
Source: Illinois State Water Survey

Illinois Drought