Record or Near Record Dry Autumn Across the Area

Meteorological autumn (September - November) will end up as being one of the driest on record for many locations across northeastern South Dakota and west-central Minnesota. In fact, several reporting locations have set or tied their all time record for driest autumn periods on record!

The table below shows the Sep-Nov 2011 precipitation totals for several sites across the Aberdeen forecast area, along with the overall ranking, and year and amount of the record (or previous record) dry autumn.

Location	Sept-Nov Precipitation	Rank	Record (or previous record)	Year
Clark	1.41	1st	1.44	1935
Watertown	0.93	1st(Tie)	0.93	1935
Artichoke Lake	1.44	1st(Tie)	1.44	1976
Browns Valley	1.33	2nd	1.30	1980
Victor 4NNE	1.31	3rd	0.91	1976
Wilmot	1.51	4th	1.39	1976
Summit 1W	1.59	4th	1.20	1980
Wheaton	1.33	4th	1.19	1976
Sisseton	1.64	10th	0.88	1935
Aberdeen	1.47	11th	0.80	1964

Figure 1 below depicts the 90-Day Departure from Normal Precipitation. Notice that precipitation departures across far eastern South Dakota range from 2.0” below normal to as much as 5.0” below normal!

Figure 2 below depicts the 90-Day Percent of Normal Precipitation. Notice that some areas across far eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota have only seen 5% of normal precipitation.