Current Drought Level, courtesy the Drought Monitor

Even though it wet out there tonight, parts of the WANE viewing area is under a Moderate Drought (see above.)

So, how much rain would it take to completely eliminate the current drought levels?  More than one would think:

Amount of rain needed to end drought, courtesy the Climate Prediction Center

Take a close look at the map above and you will see that our area would need about 9-12 inches of rain to end the current drought level.  This makes sense since we ended 2012 with 10 inches of total rain below average.

So, how much could we pick up in the next 5 days?

5 Day rain total forecast from the HPC

If you take a close look at the graphic above, you can see that our area is outlooked for about 1.5 to 2.0 inches of rain total over the next 5 days.  This will take a bite out of the drought and it’s a good place to start, but we need several more events like this over the winter and spring to completely eliminate the drought.