Vibrant colors peeking out despite ongoing drought concerns in Northeast Wisconsin

(WLUK) -- As the days pass, flowers are blooming and budding is becoming more apparent on our trees.

It's finally starting to look like spring here in Northeast Wisconsin. However, parts of our area remain in a serious drought.

"What we have is a subsoil moisture problem. There just isn't any," said Valerie Dantoin, an instructor for Northeast Wisconsin Technical College who teaches sustainable food and agriculture systems.

She says there's a reason why we continue to see vibrant greens, despite the drought.

"The little bit of snow we got -- say, 10 inches, in that last blizzard two weeks ago -- it all soaked in nice and slow. That was great, fantastic," Dantoin said. "But it's only enough to wet the top six, eight inches of soil. Not enough to carry us very much further."

Dantoin showed me a soil profile, or what it would look like if you were to take out a shovel and dig into your lawn.

"What we're seeing is that our current rains and moisture have only filled up about this top amount of soil with moisture, and the porous spaces down here are still very dry."

According to Dantoin, the average amount of rain needed to maintain healthy vegetation levels is about an inch a week for the rest of spring, all the way through summertime.

Even though rain isn't always guaranteed to arrive, there is a way you can prolong that moisture.

"We like to tell people to incorporate organic matter to your soil," Dantoin said. "On our farm, we incorporate cow manures and straw and all kinds of things like that, so that we retain the moisture we do get."

Drought monitors show that for right now, most of Northeast Wisconsin is normal -- but in northern counties and even down in Waushara and Green Lake counties, there are spots where it's moderately dry.

But with rain in the forecast through Wednesday evening, at the very least, it will help us out in the short term.

To view the drought monitor in Wisconsin, click here.