Extremely dry weather increases fire risk during harvest

As we’ve come to expect, Benson was the coldest place in western Minnesota last Friday with the low falling to 27 degrees. Frost covered yards and cars.
It also likely brought an end to the growing season for those areas where the temperature fell below 30 degrees and stayed there for several hours.
Morris saw a low of 30 degrees and Appleton a low of 32 degrees. But to Benson’s north, Glenwood’s low was 37 degrees, Alexandria’s 36 degrees, and Elbow Lake’s 35 degrees.
The area’s first frost will also likely mean an increase in an already potentially bad fall fire season with crops, grasslands, and slough vegetation tinder dry.
Just 1 tenth of an inch of rain has fallen in the Benson area since Aug. 30.
At the USDA’s Swan Lake Research Farm in Stevens County, just 7 hundredths of an inch of rain was recorded in September. Alexandria in Douglas County recorded just 3 hundredths of an inch of rain in September. Grant County saw less than 3 hundredths of an inch of rain in September.
“On a statewide basis the average rainfall was 0.52 inches, which is the driest September on record back to 1895,” Mark Seeley writes in the University of Minnesota’s Weather Talk column. “Over 40 climate stations reported the driest September in history.”
Drought conditions have now spread across 94% of the state. West Central Minnesota, including Swift, Pope, Stevens, and Chippewa counties are ranked abnormally dry - the first stage of a drought.

For more on this story, support community journalism and subscribe to the Swift County Monitor-News.