The Cedar River reached an all-time low of just five feet this last month, following a record drought that has struck the State of Iowa.
“It’s definitely very low, even in my 17 years here I don’t remember the Cedar River being as low as it has been,” says Michelle Berns, Naturalist II with the Muscatine County Conservation Board.
She helps manage the Saulsbury Bridge Recreation Area, a 675-acre park adjacent to the Cedar River in the middle of Muscatine County, among other parks.
It’s gotten to the point that many of the wetland areas around the Cedar River could dry up, which could affect several animals in spring, including frogs, toads, salamanders and newts.
“We’ve been in a drought, and we haven’t had a lot of consistent rainfall,” she says. “It all really depends on what’s going on up north as well.”
What’s going on up north? Well, not a lot right now.
Rainfall and snowmelt in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo feed into the Cedar River. However, they, like all other cities in Iowa, are facing a severe lack of precipitation.
It’s all due to a three-year long drought according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), a drought that is one of the worst seen in Iowa since the 1950s.
“What you’re seeing is the impact of three years of below normal rainfall, and it’s wreaking havoc in eastern Iowa,” explains Tim Hall, Hydrology Resources Coordinator for the Iowa DNR.
Out of 130 years of record keeping, it’s the 11th driest year it has ever been in Muscatine County, and those records reach back to before the great Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Parts of Muscatine, and surrounding counties, are more than 15-20 inches below normal for precipitation. As a response, the Cedar River is rated at below normal and much below normal by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Back in March, the Cedar River was clocked in at a flow of 20,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) in Cedar Rapids. However, after a significant drop in June, the Cedar River is now at 1,000 cfs.
"Late fall into early winter is when we see the lowest stream flows of the year; typically our rivers are at their lowest low at this time of the year anyway,” explains Hall.
“However, we are now well into our third year of below normal rainfall, and it’s been particularly dry in the eastern part of the state this year,” he adds.
A quick look and it’s easy to see the effect on the local river. Sand bars are ever present, some of which are filling up with vegetation.
These abnormally dry conditions have lasted more than 183 weeks in Iowa. While precipitation was up in December due to some late rain, it’s been way down in the previous months.
Typically, Muscatine County records around 40 inches of rain per year, but last year it only recorded around 30 inches, a major drop of 10 inches of precipitation.
Basically, it’s really dry right now.
“You hear about it in the western part of the United States all the time; you don’t hear a lot about it here,” says Berns. “I think it’s definitely something to have in the back of your mind.”
From a historical perspective, this drought is one of the worst droughts in Iowa history.
“The drought conditions are so significant that it’s going to take a lot of rain to make up for it,” says Hall, explaining that for each year of the drought the deficit has been growing.
In 2021 it was dry, then in 2022 that dry deficit carried over into another dry year, followed by yet another dry year in 2023, putting Iowa three years behind on rain.
“You get a little bit further behind every year,” he says, comparing the moisture debt to a financial debt. “Each year it becomes harder and harder to overcome that initial debt.”
Back in November, 28 percent of Iowa was in extreme drought, 35 percent was in severe drought, and 22 percent was in moderate drought.
Strong El Niño conditions are expected to continue through the winter, says Iowa State Climatologist, Dr. Justin Glisan.
El Niño is the weather pattern currently affecting North America. Warm waters in the Pacific Ocean have caused its jet stream to move south of its neutral position.
With this shift, areas in the northern U.S. and Canada are drier and warmer than usual. Meanwhile, in the south, areas are receiving more rain and flooding.
In an El Niño winter, precipitation can vary. Warmer than normal temperatures could result in more rain than snow during the winter months.
However, the dry winter months will make drought recovery challenging. January is normally the driest month of the year in the state, with an average of less than one inch of moisture, even after the onslaught of snow recently.
“November was a terrible month for rainfall, in December we got that Christmas rain which was great,” says Tim Hall about Iowa, explaining that April, May and June are its wettest months.
“Those are kind of like the make-it or break-it months,” he says. “We’re hopeful that we’ll see at least some kind of normal rain fall in the spring to get us off to a good start.”
On average in Muscatine County in April, there are around four inches of rain, in May, around four-and-a-half inches and in June, a little over five inches of rain.
In order to get out of this drought, the weather needs to exceed those numbers come spring.
“We need above average precipitation for several months, if not more than a year, to really bust drought conditions,” says Glisan. “What I would like to see in May, June and July is 200 percent the normal precipitation.”
“That would start replenishing soil moisture profiles, we would start to see more runoff, that’s where you see rebound in streams,” he says. “Those will be the indicator that we’re moving in a positive direction.”
However, looking ahead, it’s hard to say if spring will be enough. According to Glisan, predicting a wet or dry spring right now is a climatological coin flip.
“We don’t see anything in the outlooks now that suggest a particularly wet signal, but we also don’t see anything that would suggest a particularly dry signal,” he says. “We really don’t have a clear signal right now.”
Until then, don’t expect to see the Cedar River to rise too much. Though snow is projected in the coming month, it won’t be until spring that maybe, just maybe, Iowa will catch a break from the drought.