In southern Illinois, farmer Jim Unverfehrt steered his pickup beside a corn crop already lost, then hopped out to search for the soybeans he planted six weeks earlier.

He paced in disbelief.

“I know they’re here somewhere,” he said, before finally finding a few withered sprouts, fragile as cobwebs.

In Missouri, crews at the Mark Twain National Forest have battled blazes at a time of year when the area’s humidity and moist vegetation usually keep flames from spreading.

Dispatches from the 2012 Drought Belt, where Kansas City bakes pretty much in the middle, attest to how months of dryness leave different places cooked in different ways.

Read the full story at kansascity.com.