Weekly Nebraska Soil Moisture Report - June 27, 2011

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 27, 2011 

What a difference a few weeks can make. Two weeks ago, most of the state was rapidly drying out and many locations were in need of a decent rain. Since then, most places have received significant precipitation, too much precipitation in some places. As of the end of Sunday, there are still four locations with SMI’s below 0.0, but Nebraska City likely went above with rainfall overnight. Elgin has dipped below again but had enough rain to briefly push them over last week. Given the river levels across the region, a week of drier weather would be a blessing and that seems to be in the offing (see HPC map). Much warmer weather is expected across the state mid to late week and with moist ground and transpiring corn, the heat will likely be a very humid one in the eastern 1/3 of the state.