Statewide soil moisture report- 5 October 2015

Persistence 

The title of this week's report is called "Persistence" due to the fact there were very few meaningful changes to last week's map. If you recall from last week's report, a slow moving upper level low the previous week dumped considerable amounts of rain over much of eastern and north central Nebraska creating a sharp northwest to southeast gradient in soil moisture. With seasonally cool temperatures prevailing over the state much of last week and only modest amounts of rain, this week's map almost looks like a carbon copy of last week's. Thus, anything east and northeast of a line from Merritt to Merna and over and down to York and Indian Cave State Park is sufficiently moist.  Everything to the west and southwest of that line is still quite dry, with three sites (Cozad, Minden, and Sidney) reporting SMI vaues that are in the lowest (i.e., most negative) category. Significant precipitation is not expected anywhere in Nebraska over the coming week and with the return of above average temperatures, it is unlikely that the current spatial pattern of the SMI will change much.