Nebraska Soil Moisture Index Map - June 28, 2010

The High Plains Regional Climate Center is now featuring a weekly Nebraska Soil Moisture Index map.  For the next month or two, the HPRCC will feature a weekly Nebraska soil moisture report and map on the front page of the website, before moving it to a permanent location on the AWDN Soil Moisture page.  If you have any comments or questions about the SMI, please use the contact us page.

"The Soil Moisture Index (SMI) is an index applied to the volumetric water content at the depths of 10, 25, and 50 cm. It is averaged over those three depths and scaled such that 5.0 represents field capacity and -5.0 represents the wilting point.  Measurements are made under grass covered, rain fed conditions and may not be representative of soil moisture conditions in fields with standard row crops."  To learn more about the SMI, click here.

Nebraska Weekly Soil Moisture Report - June 28, 2010 

The southern and eastern sections of Nebraska remained quite wet over the last week and the north central and western sections were generally dry. This pattern is reflected in this week’s map as the SMI is generally over 3.0 along and south of the Platte River while a few Sand Hills sites have an SMI below 0.0. Precipitation amounts for the month are well above average statewide but in the north central region, most of that rain fell in the first half of the month, and the current SMI map reflects the lack of precipitation in recent weeks.