(Radio Iowa) – The recent snow and rain could help Iowa improve drought conditions was we move out of March and into April. The Iowa D-N-R’s Jessica McIntyre says she sees changes when looking back at the Drought Monitor for the start of March. “Especially in central Iowa, where there was what was considered D-1 or moderate drought, has now been downgraded to D-zero, which is abnormally dry, so that’s an improvement. And there’s also another section in eastern Iowa that also had that similar trend,” she says. Several areas of the state with drought got snow and rain last week. McIntyre says there will be some help as the snow melts with warmer temperatures.

“Not sure how much impact it will have immediately, just because we’re still kind of in that transition time when the ground is still somewhat frozen,” she says. McIntire says things are looking okay as we head into what are normally wetter spring months. “We get normal or above normal precipitation over the next couple of months, yeah, I think we’ll be in pretty good shape, especially when we compare ourselves to a year or two years ago. We are sitting pretty good right now,” McIntire says.

McIntire says the driest months of the year are behind us and there should be improvement as we move toward spring planting.