According to that data, Webster, Calhoun, Pocahontas, Palo Alto, Sac, and portions of Humboldt and Hamilton counties are experiencing moderate drought conditions.

The majority of Kossuth and Wright counties remains abnormally dry.

Paul Kassel, Iowa State University Extension field agronomist, covers Buena Vista, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Kossuth, Palo Alto, Pocahontas, Sac and Winnebago counties.

Kassel said Sac County has been dry for a while.

These counties are affected by drought.

“Sac County is probably the worst,” he said Thursday. “It was on the moderate drought monitor a week ago and the rest of the areas I cover went under the moderate drought this morning and I would concur with that. That’s kind of what I am seeing is the lack of rainfall. Buena Vista, Pocahontas and Sac is dry in there.”

“There’s some corn in there that has been looking really tough,” he added. “Even three weeks ago and it hasn’t rained much since. There is some widespread dry areas in the areas I cover.”

As far as the impact on crops, Kassel said he’ll know more in the coming weeks.

“We are too early to tell for sure,” he said. “The concern is really high temperatures like last week and yesterday that’s moisture stress. You are stressing the plant to where they aren’t getting the moisture to meet that demand.”

“Basically we know that corn will pollinate under some really tough conditions, but also has to fill it,” Kassel said. “It might make the ear diameter smaller, kernel depth might be smaller, kernel width might be smaller. We are not out of the woods yet, either. It’s about an eight-week process to produce that ear of corn and fill those kernels. The first week is probably the most important, and then it goes down from there. So any stress here the next two, three, four weeks of the corn plant fill period can cause a lot of damage, so that’s what we are looking at.”

Parts of south central Iowa have been upgraded to severe drought.

“The southwest two thirds of the state, south central is really dry too,” Kassel said. “My counterpart down there is saying it’s been drier for longer down there.”

While a large portion of Iowa is experiencing drought conditions, northeast Iowa has been a little too wet.

“In 2012, it was a widespread drought,” he said. “It was a larger scale drought. This year we have areas of northeast Iowa, southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, that have too much rain and I think the eastern Corn Belt is getting too much rain too. It’s probably not quite the coverage. It’s kind of a flash drought. About five, six weeks ago we weren’t even thinking about it and now here we are.”

Based on current projections, Kassel said the dry weather could continue for a while.

“There was widespread rain yesterday, but the amounts weren’t too good,” he said. “Prospects of rain don’t look very good for the next two weeks the way I understand it. There could be quite a bit of an impact from this. We don’t really know for sure right now, but every week goes by we will have a better handle on what the drought affects are, what the impact is.”