12:35 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Associated Press

BATON ROUGE -- Heavy rains pounded much of Louisiana Monday and more rain was forecast this week, but it's hardly enough to make a dent in the south Louisiana drought.

State Climatologist Barry Keim said during this January-June period, south Louisiana collected an average of 16.6 inches of rain. "That is the driest on record for southern Louisiana, going back to 1985," he said.

The previous driest January-June period on record was 2000, with 17.1 inches on average, Keim said. The long-term average would be 29.1 inches of rainfall from January to June, he said.

The October-June rainfall average for the southern part of the state was 23.6 inches and that is also the driest on record, Keim said. The long-term average for October-June would be 42.1 inches, so this period's rainfall was 56% of normal. The previous record was October 1902-June 1903 at 24.4 inches of rainfall on average in the southern part of the state.

The U.S. Drought Monitor has almost all of south Louisiana listed as being in "extreme" drought, Keim said. "We have been in extreme drought now for probably a month and it may be time" to move to the next classification, which is "exceptional," he said.

Farmers don't have to use that monitor, Keim said. The lack of rainfall has also halted some farming in areas where Hurricane Rita pushed salt water on to fields and the lack of rain has kept the land too salty to farm.

"We have been in a drought that predates even Hurricane Katrina," Keim said. The southern part of the state has had deficient rainfall for almost every month, except hurricane precipitation from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, going back to last March or April of last year, he said.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)