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The impact of a multiyear drought isn’t as severe as it was a year ago, but drought conditions still exist and are being worsened by a spring that turned out to be drier-than-normal once again.

Now in its third year, the drought that is impacting Tennessee and much of the Southeast continues to hamper the agriculture industry, with the impact being felt by everyone from beef farmers who rely on pasture growth to crop growers attempting to take advantage of an increased demand for corn.

The drought reached historic proportions across much of the Southeast last year before late winter and early spring rains helped water tables and soil moisture rebound. However, experts say that farmers are once again feeling the impacts this year.

“One of the biggest things we’re looking at is crop conditions due to the low amount of rain we’ve had,” said Jeremy West, director of the Agriculture Extension Office in Scott County. “We’re seeing corn not at the stage it should be at this time, a lot of beans are still small due to the lack of rain, and we aren’t seeing enough pasture growth or forage growth.”

Still, conditions aren’t as bad as they were a year ago . . . at least not yet. Currently, the U.S. Drought Monitor — a collaborative effort of the National Weather Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies to monitor drought conditions — lists Scott County as being borderline between in a moderate drought and simply being abnormally dry.

At its worst late last summer, the drought saw the county, along with much of the rest of Middle and East Tennessee, classified as being in an “exceptional drought” — the top of the charts, as droughts go.

Near-normal rainfall earlier in the year helped to lessen the drought’s impact, but the spring season still turned out to be drier-than-normal, according to the National Weather Service, with the month of June on pace to be exceptionally drier-than-normal.

According to NWS data, Knoxville had recorded nearly two inches of rainfall for the month as of Monday (local data is not immediately available from the NWS). That’s already surpassed the 1.34 inches of precipitation recorded during the month of June a year ago, but less than half the normal amount of rainfall for the month.

Foresters blamed the ongoing dry conditions for wildfires, which have consumed nearly 10,000 acres in East Tennessee — including nearly 5,000 acres in the 11-county Knoxville district, which includes Scott County — so far this year.

The flow of local rivers — which, geologists say, is a good indication of the water tables beneath the Earth’s surface, which is one way drought is measured — was well below the normal readings for late summer as of Monday, according to gauges maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey, and were flowing even lower than they were during the same period a year ago.

At Leatherwood Ford Monday afternoon, the stream flow had dropped to 53 cubic feet per second (cfs), below last year’s record low flow of 62 cfs and well below the normal flow for the date, which is around 200 cfs. On New River, the flow was measured at 27 cfs Monday afternoon, well above the record low of 1.6 cfs (set in 1936) but below the average of 105 cfs. At Clear Fork, the flow was measured at 7.3 cfs, slightly above the 1936 record of 4.5 cfs but below the norm of 60 cfs.

West said it is too soon to write off this year’s crops — “If we had a couple of inches of rain next month and some rain every couple of weeks, we would see pasture growth and forage growth rebound” — but said that hay production for the second cutting later this summer is likely to be impacted regardless. “The first cutting of hay was good, but the second cutting could be drastically reduced due to the lack of rain,” he said.