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It's a good thing Minnesota isn't known as the Land of 10,000 Waterfalls, because our ongoing drought is causing many of them to simply dry up.

There's no doubt Minnesota is in the middle of a serious drought right now. I can only recall two separate rain events at our house in northwest Rochester over the past month or so. And, it's not just me. Earlier this week, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said that 52 percent of Minnesota now experiencing severe drought and 4 percent was experiencing extreme drought as declared that the entire state had moved into a drought warning phase.

But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and it's the picture of the dried-up lower waterfall at Gooseberry Falls State Park, just north of Two Harbors along Minnesota's North Shore (about 4 hours north of Rochester) that has really driven home how little rain the North Star State has seen so far this spring and summer.

According to this story from Duluth TV station KBJR, the lower falls on the west end of Gooseberry Falls State Park have simply dried up. (Check out the pictures below that show how dry it is now compared to just a month ago!) But, the story also notes that, according to the DNR, the dried-up area of the park is the smallest flow spot for all of the falls, so when we're in a dry spell, it's the first place to stop flowing.

But it's not just the North Shore where the drought conditions are becoming more apparent. KARE-TV's Jana Shortal shared a picture of a dried-up creek bed (which actually looks more like a trail through the woods than a creek bed) along 50th in Minneapolis that normally is a tributary of Lake Harriet.

It isn't a surprise that the key to getting these Minnesota water features back is rain... and a lot of it. The DNR said we need several rain events to try to end the current drought, noting, "ender current conditions, it will take at least three to five inches of precipitation spread over a period of about two weeks to significantly alleviate the drought," it noted.

So maybe we should all do a collective rain dance to try to get Mother Nature to get us some more moisture. In the meantime, as our temperatures heat up into the upper 80s and 90s again, keep scrolling for some activities you CAN do when it's too hot outside in Minnesota.

Listen to Curt St. John mornings from 6 to 10 on Quick Country 96.5
and afternoons from 2 to 6 on 103.9 The Doc

11 Activities To Do When The Weather Is Too Hot Outside

It doesn't happen often in the Northland, but heatwaves do occur and sometimes it's just too hot to be outside in the elements. When that happens, there are still plenty of things you can do to have fun or even be productive.

Give these a try during a heatwave.

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