INDIANA, USA — Hurricane Helene is now long gone, but the new drought update was just released Thursday morning, Oct. 3, showing big improvements to the drought across Indiana. The vast majority of central and southern Indiana was eliminated from the drought, although "drier than normal" conditions remain.
Tap HERE to see our next chance for rain in central Indiana.
Rainfall we picked up
Helene brought high winds to all of Indiana, but especially central Indiana. A wind spike formed in the late afternoon on Friday with gusts up to 70 mph.
However, not all of the state picked up good rainfall. The vast majority of it fell from the Indianapolis areas and locations to the south and east.
The yellow color shows you where we picked up at least 2 inches of rain. The orange and red colors indicated rainfall totals 3-4+". The highest rainfall totals were in extreme southern Indiana.
Drought update
The drought has been almost completely eliminated from central Indiana and southern Indiana. There is a small pocket of level 1 drought still remaining for northern Delaware County, Blackford County and Jay County. Otherwise, we are looking much better.
The yellow color shows areas that are dry but not necessarily in a drought anymore.
You can see the vast difference one week made thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Helene. The intense flash drought in southeastern Indiana (Batesville, Oldenburg) was completely removed.
Burn bans (as of 9 a.m. Oct. 3)
Most Indiana counties have canceled their burn bans, except for six counties: Brown, Hancock, Hendricks, Jasper, Johnson and LaPorte.
