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Officials briefed reporters today during an Ohio River Basin Drought Assessment.

 

"We've been on  strecth of many months of above normal temperatures that brought us some record highs through the spring and then more record highs through the summer months.  We expect that to continue into August, but we don't think the temperature extremes will be quite as significant as we saw during June and July when temperatures were exceeding 100 degrees across much of the area," said Jim Noel with the National Weather Service office in Wilmington.

 

Noel had plenty to say about the drought in downriver portions of the Ohio River Valley but pointed out our area generally is not having too much of a problem.

 

"We definitely appear like we are in the bottoming process of this drought.  It's just going to be a slow road to improvement, it's not going to happen overnight.  Therefore we still expect the drought conditions to persist but we could get some moderation in that drought as we go into the fall," said Noel.

 

Ohio is experiencing the 10th driest year on record, but Noel says the worst seems to be behind us.

 

"It takes a while to get into droughts and it takes a while to get out.  You can get short term rainfall that will green up grasses, bring out the weeds and that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that just like that, all the hydrologic systems, including the river systems and the reservoirs are totally recharged in the matter of a day," said Noel.

 

Last year was a whole different story: 2011 was the wettest year on record for Ohio.