It’s been yet another week of drought west of I-71 and north of the Ohio River.
While scattered rains have helped things out in southern Ohio east of Cincinnati and in northern Kentucky, the drought beat goes on in Hamilton and Butler counties of southwest Ohio, as well as large parts of Indiana. Incredibly, one local meteorologist has declared that most areas are drought free! I guess he hasn’t seen the local drought monitor for this week. Western Butler and northwestern Hamilton Counties remain in extreme drought. Most of the rest of Butler County is in severe drought, while there is a rapid gradation over Hamilton County from extreme drought in the northwest to no drought in the extreme southeast.
Critical stresses are being observed in trees and landscapes in the drought areas. Severe summertime heat has combined with the drought to cause weakening of plants and mounting deaths. Studies by the US Forest Service show that tree mortality rates increase for a decade after a drought. We are still in the decade shadow of the droughts of 2007 and 2008. This drought will only serve to compound the problem.
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