June, summer rain, and El Niño

Unofficial summer is here (meteorological summer), running June 1 - August 31st and I've been responding to many emails lately about the rain (or lack thereof) and the incoming super El Niño. Up until mid-May, there was great concern about when the rain would finally come. After all, I had been talking about a shift to "wetter" conditions with the incoming El Niño, but it just wasn't working out that way and week after week passed with no real change.

Let's look at how the water temperatures have changed since early May:

Now June:

The expansion of the warmer water to the west is quite impressive. On average, the water temperatures are .5°C warmer across the area that's monitored for El Nino (which happens to be more than 8 million square miles - mainly south of Hawaii)

And what we are seeing looking deeper into summer and early fall is even more drastic, with the likelihood of a strong El Nino shaping up. In fact, there's even some modeling that suggests this event might challenge the strongest El Nino on record (1997-98), which was one of the first episodes that was measured with satellite technology and studied more extensively.

Below is the 1997-98 El Nino

As we've said before, most strong El Niño patterns favor rain for Kansas. I've spent some time looking back at previous summers with this kind of influence and while not every month was wetter than average, more times than not rainfall was near or above average.

Here's the latest June outlook for rainfall:

And temperatures:

If we put the summer months (June, July, August) into one map, you get this kind of look:

Temperatures:

And rainfall:

I can (and will at some point) post some more images into the fall, but I continue to see signs of rain ahead, so drought will continue to scale back. It wouldn't be a total surprise if some areas of western Kansas fall out of drought altogether, but it will take more time for that to happen. 

Thanks for reading. I hope to have more timely updates this month. Please check back!

May rain/temperature maps

The month of May is here & usually it is the peak of severe weather season for Kansas. However, April was busy and this statistic regarding the number of tornado and t-storm warnings backs that up:

The focus has clearly been on the eastern half of the state, and more specifically, along and southeast of the Turnpike. Note the quick drop off of storm reports once you get west of Great Bend and Hays. Every cold front that has pushed through hasn't encountered that rich, Gulf humidity until it made it east of I-135. Our tornado count is right around 30 for 2026, which is on track to outpace 2025, but still well below the average of 80 that Kansas expects in a year.

May outlook:

It sure looks like the month overall is drier than average - doubt you'll be surprised by that considering the trends as of late. Here's the updated map:

Even locations that have been wetter in April may be trending drier for the upcoming 30 days (talking about eastern Kansas). 

Temperatures:

I still feel strongly about May overall being slightly cooler than average. One could be concerned that a lack of rain and sub-soil moisture would allow temperatures to soar, but we continue to see signs of cooler air dominating the areas along and east of the Rockies. This doesn't look like record cool, but doubtful that summer heat takes over like it did in March.

Waiting on rain is testing everyone's patience. We continue to talk about the El Nino and a potential shift toward some better potential of rainfall. Our longer range data still shows that for summer and into early fall. It is hard to imagine that when everything lately has gone around us, but I still think a shakeup in the dry pattern is coming. 

Hopefully it is in time for the fall crops, which I would suspect it would be, but we should also note that summer rains can be very scattered, in which case some will be left out. As you well know, our models aren't perfect and their accuracy may have had some recent setbacks, but we continue to dig into the data as best we can to unlock some downstream clues.

Thanks for reading!

Remain hopeful looking ahead - ENSO update

It's not exactly unfamiliar territory for anybody in Kansas these days. Spreading drought, missed opportunities on rain, and everything seems to go around us. We are back in that all-to-familiar pattern where we just can't seem to buy a healthy rain. I'm not a wheat expert, but after some recent trips across the state, this year's crop is very short and likely moisture starved, so whatever rain we do get will be too late for that, I'm sure. 

Backing up the concerns for rain - parts of the state have had only 5-10% normal moisture over the past 60 days:

There's reason to be hopeful looking forward. First, let's address the El Nino because the water temperatures have just gone positive in the critical area that is monitored (along the equator and south of Hawaii). The average temperature has just gone to .1°C above average. (Below is the map showing the water temperatures compared to average). You may be noticing the extremely warm water off the California coast, but that's not the area monitored for El Nino (that water is related to something different)

Look where we will be in 60-90 days:

This could easily become a strong El Nino by late summer. Most of the time, when we move into an El Nino, odds increase for Kansas to get better rainfall. It doesn't always happen that way, but you will find more cases of wetter stretches of weather in El Nino as compared to its counterpart, La Nina. And although not shown here, temperatures tend to be near or slightly cooler for the Plains states. There are multiple cases of that happening during these kinds of setups. 

I still have concerns that the next 30 days - through mid/late May, will still wind up drier than average on a large scale. However, more areas of the state SHOULD get rain compared to what has happened so far. I can't make any promises on how much, but the weather patterns we are looking at (at least for early May) should be more helpful. 

7 Day Rainfall - compared to average - through May 3:

7 Day Rainfall - compared to average - through May 10:

7 Day Rainfall - compared to average - through mid May:

Remember, this doesn't guarantee that all areas of the state will be in better shape (compared to the previous few months), but they are signs of a shifting trend as the persistent track of low pressure off the West coast continues. That may end by the middle of May, so let's watch for that. Some of these systems may wobble around for a few days, creating the unsettled weather and leading to cooler temperatures. 

Summer Rains?

If we extend the maps out to summer (and I know some of you won't believe it until you see it), there's an increasing chance we'll have slightly wetter than average weather across the middle of the country. Will this come in June, July, or August? That's a more difficult prediction to make right now, but I'd be leaning toward more rain later in the summer as the El Nino continues to strengthen and influence the overall pattern. 

One more note about the El Nino/La Nina patterns. Take a look at the graph below. 

You'll see how we cycle back and forth between the two phenomena (where the line goes up, it is El Nino and when it dips toward the bottom of the graph, it's La Nina). It's not uncommon to be in cycles where La Nina is favored more frequently (that's where we are now), but there are cycles where El Nino is more common. It's early to say how long the incoming El Nino will last, but it should continue through at least the first part of winter before weakening - according to most models.