Don’t let recent rain fool you. New Orleans is still on the edge of drought

It seems April showers will be needed this year. A patch of southeast Louisiana is experiencing drought, and most of the surrounding area is drier than usual, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The current drought in the state started at the beginning of March, but is forecast to end by June, the monitor said in a Thursday update.

“We’re forecasting the drought to end by the middle of June,” said Brad Pugh, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association meteorologist. “And it’s looking pretty wet for the lower Mississippi Valley during the next month, so there could be some improvements as early- to mid-April.”

A drought is what happens when an area receives less precipitation than is adequate, generally less than average, according to Pugh.

The drought monitor mostly uses precipitation and temperature to determine if an area is experiencing drought. It also takes into account how much moisture the type of soil in an area can store to better analyze how much is missing during drier periods of time.

“It just depends on how much precipitation occurred,” Pugh said. “It differs among different sectors. For agriculture, it’s a more short-term drought. Hydrological drought is more long term.”

While agricultural drought refers to the effect on crops, hydrological drought has to do with water bodies and groundwater. In Louisiana, where the climate is usually very wet, short-term drought is more of what’s expected.

The greater New Orleans area has gotten little rain since mid-February. With March ending on Friday, the area has received about 2 inches of rain for the whole month, which is half of what it would normally receive.

Much of Louisiana is abnormally dry, which means that the lack of rain will slow the growth of crops. Without rain soon, those areas can reach the first level of drought, which some parts of Jefferson and St. Bernard, and all of Plaquemines Parish, are experiencing now.

However, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts above normal levels of precipitation in southern Louisiana for at least the beginning of April. If the whole month is wetter than average, that would mean more than 5 inches of rain.