Update on Drought Conditions in the High Plains Region - September 8, 2015

For areas east of the Rockies, especially in the plains, abnormally warm weather prevailed with sparse rainfall. This caused drought to appear in parts of the High Plains region. Abnormally warm and dry weather over the past 1 to 2 months led to a swath of D0 in the central Plains, primarily across Nebraska, northern and western Kansas, and eastern Colorado. Most of the new D0 region received less than half of normal rainfall in the last 30 days and/or 50% to 75% of normal since early July. Even though the past couple months have been below normal in regards to precipitation, overall much of the High Plains is well above normal for their precipitation amounts since January 1st. In the image below, you can see that the only places less below normal precipitation are in central Nebraska and Kansas and western North Dakota. Even in these areas though, precipitation is no less than 70%-80% of normal.

To learn more about the U.S. Drought Monitor, please see: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu

To see the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook, please see the Climate Prediction Center
here:http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/sdo_summary.html

To see the areas of agriculture affected by the drought, please see the USDA link: http://www.usda.gov/oce/weather/Drought/AgInDrought.pdf

To see the impacts of the drought, please see the Drought Impact Reporter here: http://droughtreporter.unl.edu/
Check out the table below for the drought conditions over the past 2 months for the High Plains Region.

To view statistics of the High Plains Region and each state check out the Regional Statistics here:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/DataTables.aspx

Drought Condition (Percent Area): High Plains Region