| 3/16/2026 | CO-DL-54 | CO | Delta |
Mildly Dry
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General Awareness
Agriculture
Plants & Wildlife
Tourism & Recreation
Water Supply & Quality
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| No precip last week. No snow on the ground. The strong winds dried out the top soil. The top 4 inches of the soil are dry, just a little below that. The juniper and pinyon trees are showing a little brown as if stressed. Some weeds and cool-season grasses are thriving. The deer are definitely enjoying the green grasses and weeds. The strong winds and the agricultural burning have increased the haze in the area. |
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| 3/16/2026 | CT-NH-43 | CT | New Haven |
Moderately Wet
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General Awareness
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| Soil is moderately wet from snowpack melt and recent rains. Minor flooding of nearby field has persisted and nearby rivers are at high levels. |
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| 3/16/2026 | CT-NL-19 | CT | New London |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
Tourism & Recreation
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| Except for a balmy spring day Tuesday, the week was cold & windy, keeping people mainly indoors. Song birds flit or sit, spring bulbs are sprouting and squirrels are everywhere. There's hope for spring yet. |
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| 3/16/2026 | FL-PN-99 | FL | Pinellas |
NA
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General Awareness
Tourism & Recreation
Water Supply & Quality
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| For the second week in a row, West Central Florida has received only a nominal rainfall total of 0.40”—just enough to serve as an appetizer but not enough to make a real difference. Beach-goers and vacationers are happy with the lack of rain and all the sunshine, but farmers are being pinched. Local water regulating authorities have invoked once-weekly lawn watering restrictions. |
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| 3/16/2026 | ID-OW-2 | ID | Owyhee |
Mildly Dry
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Agriculture
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| The soil conditions are nearly ideal to begin planting fruit trees. The soil temperature 6 inches down was 50 degrees yesterday. |
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| 3/16/2026 | IL-DP-189 | IL | Du Page |
Moderately Wet
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General Awareness
Plants & Wildlife
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| Large sections of yard inundated by yesterday evening rainfall. Sump pump running every few minutes. Most water had infiltrated by this morning by surface soil moisture frozen. Many springtime plants have been emerging since last weekend. |
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| 3/16/2026 | IA-BT-11 | IA | Benton |
Near Normal
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| A strange weather week with variable weather of either nice for the time of year or totally wintery. Very high winds several days causing power outages and today, drifting of snow. Frost must be out of the ground as rains have soaked in without puddling. River in area up due to snow melt in to the north perhaps. |
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| 3/16/2026 | KY-LY-3 | KY | Lyon |
Mildly Wet
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General Awareness
Plants & Wildlife
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| The rain from the cold front that moved through last night has made the topsoil wet. However, we are still below normal rainfall, and soils are not saturated. Strong winds and thunder/lightning occurred with the storms and cold front. There is no significant damage at my location. Grass is growing well with the recent warm temperatures, my pear tree is flowering and will be hurt by the cold. There are peach and cherry trees in bloom that will be damaged by this cold snap as well. Hopefully, all of the Bradford pears in bloom will not make fruit this year. |
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| 3/16/2026 | ME-SM-3 | ME | Somerset |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
Agriculture
Plants & Wildlife
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| 0.51" gauge, 2.8" new snow, remnant snow patches <10% ground cover. Mx 71.0°/Mn 21.5°. Sap run underway. Low volume spring runoff. No bud break to date. |
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| 3/16/2026 | MI-ON-4 | MI | Ontonagon |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
Tourism & Recreation
Water Supply & Quality
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| .73 inches of water this week, all snow, at least 8 inches. Lots of snowmobiles on the trails again. Also lots of roof shoveling. Still being careful of well water. |
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| 3/16/2026 | MN-HN-128 | MN | Hennepin |
Moderately Dry
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General Awareness
Business & Industry
Energy
Plants & Wildlife
Relief, Response & Restrictions
Society & Public Health
Tourism & Recreation
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| After a week of warm temperatures that started with a high of 60°, then slowly dropping through the 50’s and 40’s, the month of March tricked us again with a Winter Storm turning to a Blizzard (Warning). Early predictions had threatened us with a possible 14-18”, though at the time of this writing, we are maybe approaching 10”. Strong Winds have kicked in causing blowing and drifting, which will continue through most of tonight.
At any rate, we’ll see how this affects the dryness here, as It seems the ground had finally thawed a little, so maybe some of the melt will be able so soak in.
Forecast: Possible sub-zero Temperature on Monday, then climbing into the 40’s mid-week to close the week with low 50’s; Partly to Mostly Cloudy skies with random Fog; No Precipitation expected other than a chance of a couple inches of Snow on Tuesday. |
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| 3/16/2026 | MN-NB-7 | MN | Nobles |
Mildly Dry
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General Awareness
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| Although we got a substantial amount of rain-snowfall amounting to .94 (most for several months) we are still on the drought side. |
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| 3/16/2026 | MT-RV-18 | MT | Ravalli |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
Water Supply & Quality
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| With 3.3" of rain the past 4 days, we went from dry to near normal, making up for the very dry Jan., Feb., and early March. The high country picked up about 8" of SWE and Snotels are near normal. Streams are high, and our backyard stream is muddy due to runoff from logging roads. |
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| 3/16/2026 | NE-DG-63 | NE | Douglas |
Mildly Dry
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General Awareness
Plants & Wildlife
Water Supply & Quality
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| Above average high temperatures continued with a high temperature this week of 79 degrees on Monday March 9. All other days except one were also well above normal. Soil temperatures in the 60s and 70s by midafternoon continued. The soil is dry and powdery where there isn't much vegetation. The grass is starting to green up but still has a lot of brown. Most trees and shrubs and perennial flowers are still dormant, except for blooming crocuses and my Canadian choke cherry tree with leaf buds beginning to swell. We only received 0.14 inch of rain this week and the ground is drying up again. Conditions are mildly dry. March precipitation has totaled only 0.37 inch (0.53 inch below normal, or 41 percent of normal). Precipitation here for the year is now 2.22 inch, which is 0.46 inch below normal (83 percent of normal). Precipitation for the water year is 1.96 inch below normal (75 percent of normal). Plants and wildlife. Bird visits to the heated bird bath remained steady this week due to the limited sources of water. Approximately 25 species of birds (about 150 to 160 birds visit each day). Water Supply Water level in Standing Bear Lake (approximately 0.2 mile to the east of here) is approximately 2 feet below normal. Area creeks and ponds are also about 2 feet below normal. |
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| 3/16/2026 | NM-BR-233 | NM | Bernalillo |
Severely Dry
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General Awareness
Fire
Plants & Wildlife
Society & Public Health
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| Twenty three days with no precipitation whatsoever, accompanied by low RH and wicked blustery winds has ground surface and soil dried out. Unhealthy dust and air quality. Severe fire danger conditions. Wildlife searching for water. |
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| 3/16/2026 | NY-SF-92 | NY | Suffolk |
Moderately Wet
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General Awareness
Business & Industry
Plants & Wildlife
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| Very muddy from rains and run off from melting snow. Blizzard few weeks ago has melted away except for the huge piles of snow and ice that remain in so many large parking lots at shopping centers. |
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| 3/16/2026 | NY-WY-11 | NY | Wyoming |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
Agriculture
Plants & Wildlife
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| Cloudy and cool with gusty winds and morning snow, then cloudy and cold overnight with gusty winds. The high temperature was around forty eight degrees, and the low around thirty nine degrees Fahrenheit. Songbirds are eating a feederful every two days. More small flocks of Canadian Geese are present. Crocuses are blooming. More flocks of small black birds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles and song birds are appearing. The local intermittent stream and nearby trout stream are flowing at spring levels. Some liquid manure is being spread. |
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| 3/16/2026 | NC-CW-59 | NC | Chowan |
Mildly Dry
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General Awareness
Agriculture
Plants & Wildlife
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| With .38" of rain this past week, the total for March is .71". The shock of going from 75 to 32 degrees in less than 12 hours that resulted in a heavy frost last week has not slowed the growth of winter weeds and the continuing budding of oak and pine trees. Azalea is budding. Maple flowering is complete. Some daffodils have finished blooming. Forsythia is in bloom now. Clary sage growth has really increased since last week, and winter wheat still looks good. Water levels in area field ditches has dropped, with some having no standing water. Soil moisture in the top layers is still good. Some early plowing has started on drier sites. |
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| 3/16/2026 | NC-MS-19 | NC | Madison |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
Agriculture
Fire
Plants & Wildlife
Water Supply & Quality
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| we had 1.51 inches of rain during the past week leaving us about normal moisture levels. Water levels in creeks and springs is at average levels with spring fed watering tanks running full; The risk of fire has been higher this week but lower this morning; Transplant and seed beds have good moisture content. |
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| 3/16/2026 | OH-HM-24 | OH | Hamilton |
Moderately Wet
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General Awareness
Plants & Wildlife
Society & Public Health
Water Supply & Quality
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| 1.28 inches of rain in the past 7 days and 4.67 inches in the first half of March. This is approximately 200% of normal. Streams are back in their banks and a couple warm, windy days have helped surface drying some but swales are still wet and there is still some standing water. |
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| 3/16/2026 | OK-GY-9 | OK | Grady |
Severely Dry
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General Awareness
Agriculture
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| Not looking very good here, has been some rain around us but none in this location. Crops not looking very good, can see the drought stress on wheat. Some farmers thing about grasing out instead of harvesting for grain. |
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| 3/16/2026 | PA-AD-83 | PA | Adams |
Near Normal
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General Awareness
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| Conditions over last 7 days - 0.66" rain. Near normal rainfall for March, still below normal for YTD (73%) and Water year (66%). Estimate near normal ground conditions as a result of rain this week. Grass starting to turn green in areas. |
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| 3/16/2026 | SC-HR-172 | SC | Horry |
Mildly Dry
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General Awareness
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| Limited dew and rain up until now. No County burn ban yet.
Woods are very dry. |
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| 3/16/2026 | VA-RNC-3 | VA | Roanoke (city) |
Moderately Dry
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General Awareness
Plants & Wildlife
Water Supply & Quality
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| The first half of March (1-16) has been somewhat drier than normal with 1.51" versus NOAA normal of 1.85". The water year (Oct. 1-Mar. 16) deficit has increased to 5.75" with a total of 11.53" or only 67% of the normal. A bigger story was the extraordinary warmth--the first 15 days of March were the warmest on record at KROA climate site (since 1912) and top 3 at all five regional climate stations. At KROA temps ran +10.9F for the period at 56.8F, 0.5F above the previous 'record' back in 1921. Spring is well underway with many trees and shrubs flowering. A strong cold front will cross the area today with forecast temps. dropping into the low 20s, will not be easy on vegetation.
The daily (3/15/26) mean flow for the USGS gage on the Roanoke River at Roanoke at 258 cfs, in the Below Normal category. The cumulative flow (as of 3/15) since the start of the water year remains just below the 25th percentile of total flow for period. Carvins Cove local water supply reservoir (as of 3/15) was at -10.0 feet below full pond a -0.3 ft. drop in the past two weeks (75.7% of capacity, +6.0%). The US Drought Monitor (USDM) map valid as of 3/10/26 showed very little change in the past two weeks with Moderate Drought (D1) across the upper Roanoke Valley and Severe Drought (D2) over much of central VA. The NWS Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks (as of 3/15/26) show an extraordinary upper level ridge building across the western CONUS with extreme warmth likely across the southwest and central states. In the East, a very dry period is forecast with closer to normal temperatures.
Per the latest from the CPC (3/9/26), La Niña remains present in the tropical Pacific with a 3-month Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) of -0.9 for the DJF 3-month period. Consensus forecasts continue to indicate a transition to ENSO-neutral in the next few months and then possibly to El Niño by mid-summer although the impact on precipitation patterns remains unclear.
Will show a one-category decline in conditions for this update to Moderately Dry as spring is well underway and the longer term precipitation deficits and warmth maintain pressure on water supplies. |
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