Drought — Gosper, Nebraska

2023-04-01 to 2023-04-30 · Gosper, Nebraska

Wider weather episode

Throughout April 2023, at least portions of 23 of the 24 South Central Nebraska counties were assigned at least Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM). This was the 15th consecutive month that D2 plagued parts of the local area. Of greater concern, at least portions of 12 counties featured Extreme Drought (D3) for at least part of the month (this was the ninth straight month that D3 afflicted some of the local area), and toward month's end parts of three counties saw the introduction of worst-off Exceptional Drought (D4). This marked the first appearance of D4 within South Central Nebraska in 9.5 years (since Sep. 2013). It is little surprise that the drought situation went further downhill during the month, given that a very dry March was immediately followed by an exceptionally dry April (see below for more April precipitation details). Focusing on county-level USDM drought category specifics during the month, for the majority of South Central Nebraska there was overall-little change, as D2 continued to blanket the majority of real estate especially along/north of the Highway 6 corridor, with only four counties along the Kansas border (Harlan/Franklin/Webster/Nuckolls) continuing to hold onto predominantly D1 Moderate Drought conditions...with Webster the only county assigned no D2 whatsoever. On the worse-off side of things, the month opened with portions of eight counties in D3, including Nance, Merrick, Polk, Greeley, Howard, Hall, Hamilton and Furnas. Then, late in the month, the April 25th USDM issuance expanded D3 to include more of several of the aforementioned eight counties, along with parts of Valley, Sherman, Dawson and York counties. That same April 25th USDM also introduced the dreaded D4 category to northern/eastern portions of Nance, Polk and Merrick counties.

Turning to April 2023 precipitation details, it was overall bad news, with all of South Central Nebraska registering between moderately and tremendously-below normal precipitation. More specifically, the majority of the 24-county domain totaled between 0.15-1.00 inches, or roughly 5-40 percent of normal. In fact, around 95 percent of the area measured less than one-half of monthly normals, and roughly 70% of it registered less than ONE-FOURTH of normal! Several official, long-term NWS stations bemoaned a Top-5 driest April on record. Among the Tri Cities airports, this included Grand Island (0.15...3rd-driest out of 128) and Kearney (0.20...2nd-driest out of 128). Per around 165 NWS and NeRAIN/CoCoRaHS observers, many of the most dire April tallies resided within central/western parts of South Central Nebraska, including: 0.08 at Riverdale, 0.11 in Ravenna, 0.12 in Wilcox and 0.15 at Central Nebraska Regional Airport (Grand Island). Meanwhile, of the very limited portion of the area that received at least 1 inch of April precipitation, the majority of it concentrated within York and southeastern Polk counties (along with very small portions of Adams/Clay counties where a slow-moving thunderstorm on the 9th boosted monthly amounts at places such as the NWS office just north of Hastings). Some of the highest monthly precipitation totals featured: 1.88 four miles east of Waco, 1.86 at the NWS Hastings office, 1.84 three miles west of Gresham and 1.68 three miles north of York.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1090776. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.