(Radio Iowa) – Recent rains have given some hope that Iowa will pull out of the drought conditions that weren’t helped by a drier than normal spring. D-N-R hydrologist, Tim Hall, says some areas saw several inches of rain in a short time — which he says is good — even if a lot of it ran off the ground without sinking in. “Any rain we get is good for the environment. If it runs off quickly, it ends up in the stream. Stream flows were way down, so getting some increased rainfall in our stream system is great,” Hall says.

He says there weren’t any reports of significant flash flooding, which is a good indicator of just how dry it is. “We’ll take what we get, and we’ll we’ll count it as a good thing. And we’ll hope to get some more,” he says. Hall says the impact was immediate on some of the waterways that have restrictions on them for irrigation. “We had some streams that were dropping and dropping and dropping and then you get an ice rain like this and those stream flows pop back up higher. So it certainly helps the situation with folks who are wanting stream flow water for irrigation,” according to Hall.

He says we need more consistent rains at about one inch each week. “No single storm event is going to eliminate drought in the state of Iowa,” he says. “It’s gonna take sustained rainfall events over a long period of time to do that.”

The recent rains should show up in the U-S Drought Monitor which comes out Thursday.