So how dry is it (even with 1.5 inches in my rain gage Sunday morning)? 

I have a NEXRAD cell (radar rainfall record) about 200 feet from my house that I use for recording rainfall (NEXRAD official rainfall was .9 inches for Sunday).
 
The historical average rainfall for Linn County Iowa is 35.15 inches/year.  Rainfall on my farm since Jun 27 2011 has been 25.17 inches. 

Average rainfall since January is 16.56 inches, my farm in 2011 was 16.48 and in 2012 has been 10.47.

Average rainfall since April 1 (start of growing season) is 12.21 inches, my farm in 2011 was 11.80 inches and in 2012 has been 5.30 inches.

So I am short 10 inches (28%) for the year and 6.5 (54%) for the growing season. 

Now we welcome 100 degree temperatures