Nebraska Soil Moisture Index Map - August 30, 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 - August 30, 2010 

Moist soils are becoming an increasingly scarce commodity throughout the state, as only ten sites have an SMI above 0.0. You may recall that it wasn’t that long ago when every single site in the state had an SMI above 0.0. Many sites in the panhandle have had an SMI below 0.0 since the 4th of July and sites in southeast Nebraska are going on three weeks below 0.0. Some areas of the state had enough rain last week to give some relief to a stressed profile (such as Clay Center), but in many places the rain was not effective at moistening the soil profile past 10 cm.