Farmers and residents in several Midwest states face "serious flooding" after rivers and streams were swollen by heavy rains in recent days, U.S. government forecasters said Wednesday.
The National Weather Service said the Midwest will have dry and sunny weather through the federal Memorial Day weekend, but parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin will need to closely monitor waterways that are digesting rain from the recent spate of storms.
The break in rainfall is welcome news for Midwest farmers who dealt with nearly 200 tornadoes in recent days.
Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, which rose earlier this week amid concern the storms could depress yields, were down 3 cents at $3.00-3/4 a bushel on Wednesday.
Still, the U.S. Agriculture Department said earlier this week that 71 percent of the projected record corn crop in the United States was in good or excellent condition.
"For the most part, the storms that dumped all the rain in the Midwest since last weekend are over," said Mike Looney, a forecaster with the National Weather Service's central region office in Kansas City. "Serious flooding is going to continue in many areas that were really drenched by the recent storms."
The weather service said 10 rivers in Wisconsin were flooding, six in Missouri, and dozens more in Michigan and Iowa, including several near the city of Des Moines. On Monday, up to three inches of rain fell in Des Moines within a few hours.
Flooding also continues in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
As parts of the Midwest and Eastern U.S. contend with flooding, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said drought across much of the Western U.S. will persist at least through August.
"Right now, there is a big contrast between the East and the West," said Douglas LeComte, a drought specialist with NOAA.
Some Western areas are entering their fifth year of drought, which has shriveled crops, drained water reservoirs and sparked fires in bone-dry forests. Drought now affects more than half of Western states.
NOAA said there was an above-average chance of drier-than-normal conditions this summer in the Pacific Northwest, which depends on rainfall and snowpack to generate hydropower. Forecasters said drought will improve in the Upper Midwest and the Southeast.
Above-average temperatures will blanket much of the West, the Southwest, the Rocky Mountain States, the southern Alaskan coast, the Southeast, Ohio Valley and the Northeast through August, according to NOAA.