Here we are waiting on rain... again

We did get some welcome rainfall to kick off the month of April, but suddenly, the waiting game is back on. How long will it be? The short answer is it could be late April before we see any decent, widespread chances returning. What makes this even more frustrating is watching the huge surplus of moisture continue to go south and east of Kansas - exactly the kind of rain we need to fill lakes and farm ponds.

There is a western system that is coming in around April 13/14: Expectations are low for rain

I don't have much hope on this bringing much moisture. It appears it will be another cold front that comes through with little to no widespread rain for Kansas. 

And then as we approach the start of the week April 21st, once again, high pressure "ridging" takes over areas from the Rockies westward. Again, not favorable for good rainfall in the central Plains. Upper level winds from the northwest are detrimental because most of the time the rich humidity gets pushed too far east of Kansas.

Here's the rainfall forecast (7 day compared to average) around April 15th: again, wish we had something different to display here.

However, late April looks more encouraging, but it may only be parts of the region that turn out "wetter" than average. This is the 7 day rainfall compared to average around April 30th.

All of this to say that I don't think we are moving into a wet period at all in the coming weeks. Based on the emails and messages I'm getting, several of you are fed up with drought. And sometimes it feels like we keep promising something just "8-10 days" out. Patterns are sometimes really, really hard to break out of, and as most of us are finding out in real-time, this one is no different. 

I will say this - most models going into summer don't show extreme heat. If we go into summer drier than normal (and that's my expectation), there's reason to be concerned that we "fry". However, I'm not entirely convinced that we are going down that road just yet. While there will be plenty of hot days, it may not be that rough.

Tornado count:

It has really exploded in recent weeks. As of April 3rd, we are now experiencing one of the busiest starts to the season since 2010. Note the graph below. The red line is the trend for 2025, while the solid black line represents the "average" throughout the year.