Recent Rains Reveal Improvements in Weekly Drought Monitor

We had a decent shot of rain early this morning as a cold front passed over the area. Check out these totals: 

 We expected a third inch of rain give or take and some communities got an extra helping! This was on top of the previous soaking rain from Monday this week. If you recall that led to some temporary flood concerns. Milwaukee broke their daily rain record getting over two inches of what is much needed rain. Other spots saw three and four inches of rain. Overall we are now ahead on rain for the month of August by about a half inch in the metro. And today is Thursday and that means the weekly drought monitor is in! For the first time in quite a while we are seeing solid improvement to the drought situation.  You can see a few holes where there is no longer drought, in western Wisconsin, just east of the Twin Cities and then points just north of Green Bay. Meanwhile closer to home even most of the lakeshore counties are bumped up to just "dry" conditions. 

Moving forward there is no rain expected in the seven day forecast, but the focus shifts to heat for the weekend. Temperatures likely reach 90 with sunshine by Sunday. It's a bit of a two steps forward one step back in the precip department, but we'll continue to monitor any rain events in the coming days and weeks.

I'm meteorologist Rebecca Schuld