19 June Drought Monitor & Drought Report - UNL

[hatrack]

The West: Scattered moderate rains fell on some of the dry areas in the central and northern High Plains, southern Montana, and western Colorado while little or no rain was reported across a vast majority of the region. Both the week’s rainfall and a re-assessment of conditions led to changes in Wyoming, including a northward shift in the D3 area, some northeastward D2 expansion, and some reduction of D0 and D1 conditions in central and north-central parts of the state. Meanwhile, D0 was removed from northwestern South Dakota. Elsewhere, drought conditions persisted or worsened, with D2 expanding into central Nevada, D0 pulling into the Klamath Basin of northern California and adjacent Oregon, and D2A to D3A conditions re-classified as D2AH and D3AH across southern and portions of central California, where hydrologic concerns have been steadily increasing. Farther east, a small area of dryness during the last two months led to the introduction of D0A conditions across northeastern New Mexico, the western Oklahoma Panhandle, and southwestern Kansas. Most of these areas have received just over half of normal precipitation since mid-April.

The Western Great Lakes: Generally 1 to 3 inches of rain brought an end to D2 conditions and some retraction of the D0 and D1 area across central and northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Significant precipitation was more spotty in central and southern sections of Minnesota and Wisconsin, keeping D1 areas essentially unchanged and allowing for some expansion of D0 conditions southward in these regions.

The Southern and Eastern United States: Heavy rain fell on parts of the dry areas now extending from the Gulf Coast northward through the mid-Atlantic, the Ohio Valley, and upstate New York, but significant totals generally evaded the areas experiencing the most intense drought conditions, and even in areas where several stations reported multiple inches of precipitation for the week, those reports were interspersed with nearby reports of little or no rain. Specifically, scattered heavy precipitation totals ranging from 2 to 5 inches were reported in eastern Texas and much of Louisiana, northern Mississippi and adjacent Arkansas, southern and western North Carolina, much of South Carolina, northern Georgia, and southern and western Florida. Light to moderate rains fell on most other locations, with little or none observed in central and eastern North Carolina, much of southern Georgia and Alabama, from the west-central and northwestern Appalachians westward through most of the Ohio Valley, and in most of Tennessee and Kentucky.

The rains were sufficient to eliminate D0 in western and southern Louisiana and adjacent Texas, southern Florida, and a few pockets in the mid-Atlantic, but conditions persisted or intensified elsewhere, with D0 expanding northward through much of Ohio, Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and upstate New York. The D1 through D4 areas all expanded somewhat, primarily to the north and south or southwest, in areas between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians, except along the immediate Gulf Coast. Many locations from the south-central sections of Mississippi and Alabama northward through southern Tennessee have recorded 7 to 12 inches less than normal precipitation during the last 90 days, with some of these areas more than 20 inches below normal since mid-June 2006.

Puerto Rico: D0H conditions persisted as little or no rain fell on the lingering area of hydrologic dryness in parts of southeastern Puerto Rico.

Alaska: Generally light precipitation allowed D0 conditions to persist.

Hawaii: A few locations recorded more than an inch of rain for the week, but rainfall was neither heavy nor widespread enough to alter the D0 to D2 conditions currently affecting the island chain.

Looking Ahead: June 20 – 25, 2007, is expected to bring moderate to heavy rainfall to the southern Great Lakes region, the middle and lower Ohio Valley, parts of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and the South Atlantic Coast. Unfortunately, other areas currently experiencing dryness and drought are expected to receive light to scattered moderate amounts at best. During the ensuing 5 days (June 26 – 30, 2007), warmer than normal weather is expected to dominate much of the country, with above-normal precipitation favored only in parts of Wyoming, the northwestern Plains, the northwestern Great Lakes region, and the lower Mississippi Delta. In contrast, the odds favor a return to drier than normal conditions in the southern Great Lakes region, the Ohio Valley, the Upper South, the mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast.

END

http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

[phantom power]

1. What is crop yield looking like in the mid-west?

I see that the midwest has "recovered" from it's drought conditions but a lot of their precip this year seems to have been extreme weather. I'm wondering if the water has come back, but not in a form conducive for agriculture.