June outlook - not looking too bad

With respect to rainfall, what an amazing finish to the month of May. We're going to need much more rain to keep our fall crops on track and keep the landscape green, but I think we are all feeling a bit better than where we were in mid-May. 

Here's the map showing total May rainfall:

The highest totals came from southwest, south central, and eastern Kansas with many locations over 3 and 4 inches. That may sound like a surplus, but in reality, it's basically "average" for the month. 

June thoughts:

As June gets underway, what stands out to me is that we are NOT seeing a dominating heat ridge for the central Plains. I think that's our fear is that a big summer high pressure arrives, and the rain gets turned off for most of the month. I don't see that happening in the month ahead. There will be some hot days, and some of the driest weather may come in mid-late June, but we could have a pretty decent month with some timely rains and tolerable temperatures. 

Biggest rains in June could be weighted toward the beginning of the month. The upper level pattern continues to bring weak systems in from the West that could set off rounds of storms.

As mid-June comes into view, there's a possibility that some much warmer and drier weather may sneak in for several days. Again, looking at the map below doesn't mean "no rain", but a trend toward drier setups for the 10 day period.

As it stands now, late June also shows signs of near or drier than average.

Here's what we see on the maps for temperatures in June:

First half looks really nice - near or slightly cooler than normal (average highs are mostly low to mid 80s)

Second half of the month looks warmer than average for the Plains and Rockies - but still not seeing a major heat wave from this (heat wave being 95-100+ for several days at a time):

As a reminder, here's a breakdown of June "averages" for Kansas. It does happen to be one of our wetter months of the year, with western Kansas averaging 3-4" for the entire month, with central and eastern Kansas more along the lines of 4-5".

Thanks for reading!