Moderate to severe drought expands in Oklahoma

Significant rainfall missed most areas of dryness and drought across the contiguous 48 states, with improvements limited to part of the northern Intermountain West, central Kansas, and a few isolated spots in both Oregon and upstate New York. Elsewhere, dry conditions persisted or intensified. In particular, abnormally hot weather, low humidity, and gusty winds have led to rapidly intensifying dryness across the Plains States. Extreme drought expanded in northern New Mexico, part of central and western Oklahoma, eastern Colorado, and western Kansas while broad areas of abnormal dryness and some moderate drought were introduced farther north.

High Plains

Conditions are rapidly deteriorating through most of the High Plains Region. Moderate to isolated heavy rainfall was observed in a few small areas in central Kansas, northeastern Nebraska, and adjacent South Dakota, but precipitation was scant and short-lived elsewhere. Improvements were introduced in central Kansas, but this is very much the exception.

Although rainfall deficits only date back a few weeks to a few months, other factors are making things worse, specifically abnormal heat, low humidity, and gusty winds. High temperatures approached triple-digits as far north as South Dakota. All these factors led to broad areas of deterioration in eastern Colorado, southern Kansas, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and adjacent parts of Nebraska. Notably, extreme drought (D3) expanded to cover a large part of southern and eastern Colorado, and adjacent parts of Kansas.

South

Drought continues to rapidly develop and intensify across most of Texas and Oklahoma, with patchy dryness beginning to develop farther east in western Tennessee and adjacent Mississippi. Central parts of the region, soaked by heavy rain associated with Tropical Storm Cristobal last week, remained free of moisture deficits. Western Texas and eastern New Mexico received less than 0.5 inch the past couple of months, and most of this area recorded under an inch for the past 90 days. Farther east in central Oklahoma, higher normals allowed rainfall deficits of 2.5 to 4.5 inches accumulate over the past few weeks. As a result, moderate to severe drought expanded in many areas from central Oklahoma to the Texas/New Mexico border as far south as the Big Bend. Precipitation shortfalls are less acute and of shorter duration on the east side of the South Region, but conditions deteriorated enough to introduce D0 there.

Midwest

A band of heavy rain soaked northeastern Missouri, eastern Iowa and much of the Great Lakes Region, plus scattered areas in western Iowa and Minnesota; however, most of the heavy rains evaded areas that have been dry. It was dry and warm elsewhere, especially along the southern tier from most of Missouri eastward through Ohio and adjacent Michigan. Moisture deficits have been gradually increasing in substantial parts of this region, and D0 conditions were introduced across much of Indiana and adjacent areas, western Kentucky, and also parts of the Upper Midwest missed by the heavy rain. As in areas farther west, low humidity and winds have intensified conditions, more than precipitation deficits alone would indicate.

West

Some northern parts of the region experienced another wet week while areas west and north of the Four Corners saw little or no rain. Exacerbating the dryness, temperatures averaged at least a couple degrees above normal in most dry areas, with weekly anomalies approaching +10 degrees F from the Great Basin northward into western Montana. Between 1.5 and 3.5 inches of rain fell on northeastern Oregon and adjacent Idaho, and from the Oregon and Washington Cascades westward to the Pacific Coast. The highest elevations in the Cascades and coastal ranges recorded 4 to 7 inches in a few spots. Elsewhere, only patchy light showers were noted in the rest of the Northwest and in parts of New Mexico, and other areas reported little or none. Recent rains have been sufficient to improve or remove dryness from western Idaho southward through the northern Great Basin, and in parts of western Oregon. In sharp contrast, conditions deteriorated along the southern tier of Montana and through parts of the Intermountain West, where precipitation has been much less abundant the past few weeks. Severe drought (D2) was introduced in southwest Montana.