Even with more storms on the way, drought remains on the minds of farmers like Dennis Carnahan across Indiana.
“We see some stress in the afternoons, especially in the cornfields, they begin to roll up,” he said. “And some of them in more severe areas looks like a field of pineapple almost when it gets really stressed.”
Compounding the issue is the burst of severe weather Hoosiers saw earlier this week, with large hail damaging many crops throughout the state.
Some, like Carnahan, haven’t hit crisis levels of drought stress yet. But other areas of Indiana are in crisis, according to Jason Puma, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.
“If you get up into the Northwest parts of Indiana places like Gary, Warren and Fountain counties, those areas have had a lot less rain,” he said. “And they're actually in what we call a severe drought.”
Over the next few days, a change in state weather patterns should bring some much-needed rain, though it may not be enough to end the drought.
Read more: Thousands still without power a day after Indiana storm
Puma said many more days without rain could send us back to the dry conditions we had in May.
“Hopefully, with this change in the weather pattern that we're seeing, we'll get into a period of more occasional rains that we see every few days,” he said. “Hopefully, that can gradually bring us out. And that will certainly be good for our folks with agricultural interests.”
For now, the rains are welcomed by farmers.
“I've noticed down here in the creek bottom there might be a small area of five or six acres that flooded,” Carnahan said. “And we may have to do that again later. But this rain was a godsend, and we're grateful for it.”
Only time will tell if this burst of rain will turn into a sustained relief from an unusually dry summer, as more weather sweeps through the area in the coming days.
