‘Long stretches of almost no rain’: Consistently dry conditions in Chatham-Kent this year

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While some recent years have had drier individual months, they haven’t had the consistently drier than normal conditions Chatham-Kent has been experiencing since April, a meteorologist with the federal government has said.

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Geoff Coulson with Environment and Climate Change Canada said rainfall collected at a Ridgetown monitoring location has been below the historical average from April through August and will likely be below average for September.

“I did take a look back just in the last few years to see if I could find a sense of a year that was equivalent and nothing comes up at this point,” Coulson said.

“There were previous years where an individual month was drier than what we’ve experienced this year, but I think what has made this year more notable and stand out more is the consistency of the drier than normal conditions.”

For example, 2021 had a “very dry” April and May, Coulson said, but there was significant rainfall in June and July last year. In 2020, the Chatham-Kent area had dry conditions and April and June, but plenty of rainfall in August.

This year, August came the closest to meeting the normal conditions with 72 millimetres of rainfall compared to the 79.3 mm average.

“But when you look at the daily numbers, about a third of that August rainfall – 24.1 mm – fell on just one day, on Aug. 21,” Coulson said.

“Even situations where some months had a little bit more in the way of monthly rainfall, when you look at the daily breakdown, a chunk of that rain fell in one day and then you still have long stretches of almost no precipitation.”

Coulson said from an agricultural perspective, it’s better to have the rainfall spread out over the month to keep the ground soft to soak in the water from the next rainfall.

When the ground becomes hard due to long stretches of dry conditions, the water from “the heavier bursts of rain” will wash away “before it has a chance to soak in and the roots don’t get the benefits of as much of that rainfall because a lot of it is washing away,” he said.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada tracks drought conditions across the country. When it was last updated with information up to Aug. 31, the eastern part of Chatham-Kent was classified as “moderate drought” while the rest of the municipality had “abnormally dry conditions.”

Moderate drought is classified as one-in-five-year event, while abnormally dry is a one-in-three-year event.

The next stage is severe drought, which means a one-in-10-year event.

Coulson said for September, the Ridgetown location had only collected 11 mm of rainfall up to the afternoon of Sept. 22. While there was rain forecasted later in the month, Coulson said it’s still “very likely” the month won’t reach the normal of 89.1 mm.

“I would imagine the updated drought monitor map for Southwestern Ontario to be issued for the end of September is likely to make those conditions even more significant,” he said. “It’s difficult to say at this point whether it will go to the next level of calling it ‘severe drought,’ but it is quite possible.”

These conditions are not unique to Southwestern Ontario this year, Coulson said. Areas like Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge were already classified as being under severe drought at the end of August and several other areas were considered abnormally dry or moderate drought.