Parts of Illinois received some welcome rains in the last week. The map below is a screenshot from a precipitation product provided by the Southern Region of the National Weather Service. This is based on high-resolution radar data, and corrected using the much sparser rain gauge network.
The areas in green received somewhere between an 1.0 to 2.5 inches, while the areas in tan or light yellow received over 3.0 inches. As a rule of thumb, we get about an inch of rain per week in August. So any area in green made small gains on the rainfall deficit for the season. Meanwhile those areas in blue received less than an inch and fall farther behind on the rainfall deficit for the season.
Locally, I got 0.68 inches at my house in Champaign over the weekend. In fact, I got more rain in the early morning hours of Sunday than in all of July. My guess is that soybean farmers will be happy with anything we can get in August.
