It may come as news to farmers who struggled to harvest crops in that area, but southwestern Ontario really didn’t get much rain last fall, according to the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority. Rainfall levels were half of normal in September through November, and only 30 per cent of normal rainfall fell in November, the lowest since record keeping began in 1940, according to the authority.
That said, groundwater levels on Dec. 1 were at “normal to above normal” at monitoring wells because of previous rainfalls. The Upper Thames watershed includes a rich agricultural area from northeast of Stratford to south of London, including parts of Perth, Oxford and Middlesex counties. BF