The winter storm that dumped several inches of snow and ice across much of Missouri may bring some short-term relief to the state’s drought conditions. Kelly Smith is Director of Marketing and Commodities for the Missouri Farm Bureau. He says the winter storm arrived on the heels of recent rain events, helping saturate the soil.
“This snow is gonna slowly melt into the ground. We will get some runoff from it in some areas because they got a 10 to 13-inch snow,” Smith said. “We had areas in our state as high as 13, maybe even 15, inches up in north of (the) Kansas City area.”
Smith says, though, it’ll provide little, if any, long term drought relief. He says for that to happen, Missouri needs enough saturating rainfall for runoffs to fill up ponds, streams, and other bodies of water.