Drought 2012: Some Rain Relief Coming to Johnston this Week? Yes and No.

Let's get the understatement out of the way first: it's been a bit dry out there this summer.

How dry? Lawns are so yellow I've seen serial lawn mowers give up on them completely, due to "tinder box like" conditions in place in Polk and several other counties, Gov. Terry Branstad is meeting farmers in Mount Pleasant to talk about the effect this has had on crops.

But will it get better anytime soon? The answer is a little bit, maybe. And probably too little, too late for many of Iowa's farmers after one of the worst droughts in decades.

A low pressure system coming from the north is forecast to provide a chance at thunderstorms on Wednesday and Thursday.

Alex Sosnowski, Senior Meteorologist at Accuweather.com, said forecasters said this will be a theme throughout the rest of the summer, a little bit of rain here and there, but not enough to save already thirsty crops.

AccuWeather.com agricultural meteorologists feel that a lack of rain will continue to take its toll on non-irrigated corn in much of Nebraska and Kansas, as well as huge sections of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, southeastern South Dakota, southwestern Minnesota, southwestern Michigan and southeastern Wisconsin.

In these areas, a few tenths of an inch of rain will fall here and there in the weeks ahead with some areas barely getting a drop.

A report from Reuters agreed with this sad news, stating that a "atmospheric high pressure ridge" located to the west of us is looking to remain stable, blocking much moisture from making its way into the corn belt.

Temperatures will rise into the upper 90s (degrees Fahrenheit) to low 100s F early this week, cool to the 80s F by midweek then rise into the 90s F again by the weekend, said John Dee, meteorologist for Global Weather Monitoring.

"There are no sustainable soaking rains in sight. There is some slight relief but no huge reversal in the drought," Dee added.

Commodity Weather Group (CWG) on Monday said more than one-half of the Midwest would still be too dry and warm for at least the next two weeks and the most persistent heat was expected for the western Midwest.

Sorry to be a bummer, green thumbs. Stay tuned to Patch, though, we'll have some experts on tomorrow giving us all advice on how to conserve water through the rest of the summer.