Update on Drought Conditions in the High Plains Region - March 31, 2015

Quite a bit of our area received a decent amount of precipitation last night, although this did not go into the making of this week’s drought monitor. Besides yesterday evening, most of the High Plains was once again well above normal for temperatures and well below normal for precipitation. This means that, for most of the plains, precipitation has been below normal for a majority of the past six months. This is what prompted the United States Drought Monitor (USDM) author to degrade conditions in Nebraska from abnormally dry to moderate drought (D1). Unfortunately, the worst parts of Nebraska did not receive much precipitation last night. If they do not see precipitation soon, drought conditions may begin to rapidly deteriorate.

Last week’s rain in North Dakota helped them to prevent any drought degradations this week. Some parts of the state saw around half of an inch of rain over the past seven days. However, farther south into South Dakota, temperatures remained extremely warm (approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit) and conditions were still very dry. Coupled with the overall lack of precipitation throughout the past six months, the USDM author noted worsening conditions in most of South Dakota. This led to a D1 classification for parts of the state.

By far, the most drought-stricken area in the High Plains is western Colorado. This area went another week with little to no precipitation. Most of the snowpack in the area has little water, known as snow-water equivalent. For example, if 10 inches of snow melted into 1 inch of water, the snow-water equivalent would be 10:1. Areas of Colorado are approaching record low snow-water equivalents, which is the predominant reason why they were upgraded to severe drought (category D2).

It appears as though next week will bring a few chances for precipitation across parts of the southern High Plains. We will just have to wait and see if it will bring the right amounts to the right places!

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