Early thoughts on June - future drought maps will be interesting to see

June is right around the corner and we have made some dents in the ongoing drought (mainly northwest), but we still have quite a long way to go. Early signs point toward more rain arriving in western Kansas over the next several weeks, so we may see drought levels come down another category or two within the next 30 days. Complete drought removal seems unlikely on a large scale. Take a look at the outlook for the next month, and western Kansas may wind up getting more rain than other areas farther east. It's incredible, but long overdue some would say. 

I think there's a good chance we will have near average temperatures for June. Afternoon temperatures in the 80s with lows in the 60s would be considered normal for much of the month. The hottest part of June might be in the middle of the month, with some notable "cooling" possible as we near the end of the month.

Meteorologist Adrian Campa did some digging for rainfall stats since July 1, 2022 and what we found is pretty incredible. It was right around the 4th of July last year that some of us saw the faucet turn off and the heat crank up. Drought conditions just exploded. Just look at how far behind on rainfall we continue to be here in Kansas. It's staggering. 

One of the driest stretches on record was observed from July - September, and as most of us experienced over the winter, we didn't have much moisture to really ease the stress for the area.

Here's how the drought map looked in early July. 

Just 1% of the state was in "exceptional" status. The new map just released on Thursday still shows a lot of water still needed in Kansas. We still have nearly 90% of the state in some category of drought. 

I don't think anybody is surprised. Mainly what we have been getting lately are "scattered" rains and we need them to be widespread. That might be tough to do over the next few weeks. 

Latest long-range maps look like this for July:

Remember, this is "cooler" compared to average. It doesn't mean we'll be in jackets in summer, but I sure don't think July temperatures will be anything like last year. Much of the state had highs of at least 90-105° for nearly the entire month. I doubt that will happen again this year.

July rainfall - reason to hope for better moisture (compared to last July anyway). This may be showing some monsoon influence for western Kansas. Rainfall may be just average or slightly lower for areas farther east. 

Have a great day and a wonderful holiday weekend.

Is El Nino a for sure thing? If so, it could mean something different soon

The new drought map just released Thursday (May 18) does show some improvement across northwest and some of southwest Kansas, but as you already know, so much more rain is needed to solve the problem that started over a year ago. Right now, 87% of the state is in some level of drought, with 35% at the highest category (exceptional)

La Nina, which essentially started taking over in late summer of 2020, was such a big contributor to the development of drought. At its strongest (La Nina), water temperatures were more than 1°C colder than average, which may not sound like much but it's enough to create some different weather patterns that allowed drought to expand for months. A satellite image from December shows the La Nina across the equatorial Pacific. The area of blue is much more widespread than the area that is actually monitored to make the determination of El Nino/La Nina. 

Now, you can see the warmer colors (oranges and reds) replacing the shades of blue near the equator. We have made a quick turnaround in about 5 months. It's remarkable, actually. The quick onset of the El Nino gives me some serious hope that timely rains are now just part of the forecast. 

Where we go from here seems to be well understood at this time. As you can tell from the image above, the water is warming and should continue to do so for the next several months. Look at the graph below. It shows where we've been and the latest trend - all pointing toward a warming of the water near the equator. We will soon be in El Nino and it looks very much like it will be the dominate influence in our patterns for fall and winter. Keep this in mind when we start looking ahead and making some predictions about those seasons to come.

If we are in for an El Nino influence for summer (even if its weak at the moment), there's reasonable hope for a more comfortable summer. I'm not saying we won't have some hot days, or even some brief stretches of 100s, but it should be a far cry from last summers intense heat and drought.

It is a limited amount of data to show you here, but if history repeats, look at the summer months from 2015 and 2019 when we had El Nino in place.

Almost all of the summer months were near or slightly cooler than the average. 

Here are the maps from the summer of 2015:

If we look at summers of 2019:

Rainfall for the summer months was mixed (both above and below average):

We can't say that it's all sunshine and roses from here on out. There will still be dry stretches of weather and some months that are not as generous with rainfall. However, I will say that the worst of the drought should be in our rear view mirror. Getting our reservoirs, farm ponds, lakes and streams back to some kind of normal takes more time. If you believe some of the maps below (and they are just models - not always a guarantee), we feel that better days are to come.

June outlook for rainfall:

July outlook:

August:

Have a great day.

Thursday severe setup & such a close call for the weekend

It's already been a fairly active week of weather in much of Kansas, and it isn't quite over yet. The focus into Thursday centers around storms that will impact most, if not all of the area. The driving force behind it all is the upper low coming from California that will head into the Rockies. We've already had several tornado warnings this week in the Plains, but most of them never verified (actual eyewitness accounts of a tornado to substantiate the warning). It appears the setup will be slightly different coming up Thursday because of the overall wind setup through the atmosphere. 

Notice the low-level winds Thursday around 4pm:

The upper-level winds coming from the southwest:

The risk area for severe storms covers a big part of Kansas, but not everyone will have hail and wind, but most of the region should have a shot at some rain. 

That much difference in wind direction creates a spin, and when storms start developing in that environment, the rotation stands vertically. It still doesn't mean we will have a bunch of tornadoes, but the risk does increase some.

Tornado episodes (although there have been a few lately) haven't been as explosive or as widespread compared to March and April around the country. When you look at the tornado count for the United States, we've seen the trend level off just a bit, and we are close to average at this point in the season. What started off as the 3rd busiest tornado season since 2005 is no longer the case.

This Saturday and Sunday, a slow moving, just the kind of rain we need, will be sitting to our south in the southern Plains. Look at that significant moisture that will more than likely end up in Texas and Oklahoma. 

Once we get beyond Thursday, severe weather in our immediate area drops off for a while (maybe a week or longer). Why? For one, the humidity is going to drop next week, which significantly lowers the chances of storms AND rainfall. 

The upper-level winds next week will be much weaker and likely coming out of the northwest. Several factors contributing to the quiet stretch of weather that's in front of us. 

Here's your rain forecast (compared to average) for the 4th week of May:

And right around Memorial Day and into early June, perhaps some better chances for moisture returning:

Have a great day.

Drought improvements - maybe more to come

We are getting a look at how widespread rainfall from late April has improved drought conditions for western Kansas, but we still have a VERY long way to go. The map comes out on Thursday mornings, but moisture taken into account for drawing the map cuts off Tuesday morning. 

For comparison, here's how the map looked before the rain last week:

Here's the impact and how it looks as we start May:

Biggest improvements were in the southwest, but other areas have seen the highest level of drought expand. 

Just last May (2022), we had tremendous rain over the eastern two-thirds of the state, and drought wasn't a big concern at the time. Little did we know that La Nina would take over and shut it all off just about a month later. 

Interestingly enough, some of the wettest Mays on record for south central Kansas have occurred in recent years. 

What's ahead?

Timing of rain and storms in the second full week of May (8-13) is very unclear, but the overall weather pattern would suggest at least some chance will exist for much of the week and most of the area. Average rainfall, for just the week itself, would be somewhere around 1-2 inches and the map shown below suggests amounts could be a little above that. We expect to see a series of weaker systems coming in from the west that might set off some more rounds of rain.

The 3rd full week of the month could go dry on us with more of a ridge (or high pressure) building to our west out over the Rockies. 

This is our time of year to get rain. I remain optimistic that we are moving into some better chances for moisture, even if it feels like it is taking its own sweet time. The rapid onset of El Nino gives me hope that steadier rains will show up across the Plains as we make our way into summer. Here's a quick snap shot for June, if you want to look that far out. Some of the biggest drought improvements in the near term might be in western Kansas. 

Thanks for spending a few minutes here.