Three-day soaker ends drought status in region

REGIONAL— Drought? What drought?
It took three days of steady rain, but last week’s soaker sent the drought packing across much of the Arrowhead, except for those areas closest to Lake Superior, which remain in moderate drought according to the latest report from the U.S. Drought Monitor. The rest of the region remains listed as abnormally dry, which isn’t considered drought status.
The area seemed anything but abnormally dry in the wake of last week’s rains, the biggest single precipitation event of the year to date. Ely notched the biggest totals for the three-day storm, tallying 4.78 inches, while Tower recorded 4.45 inches. Unlike the 2024 flood event, however, the rain fell almost continuously over the course of three days, versus in a single afternoon, and that limited flood damage even as it raised water levels in lakes and rivers and filled low-lying areas and seasonal streams.
Updated stream flow data wasn’t available from the DNR this week but the USGS was reporting a Vermilion River flow of 541 cubic feet per second, or cfs, compared to last week’s volume of 58 cfs. At Littlefork, the Little Fork River was flowing at 5,060 cfs, compared to 207 cfs the week before.