Drought — Nance, Nebraska

2023-06-01 to 2023-06-30 · Nance, Nebraska

Wider weather episode

During June 2023, at least parts of 22 of the 24 South Central Nebraska counties spent the entire month assigned at least Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), with the entire domain mired in at least Moderate Drought (D1) through the month as a long-term drought situation persisted. June marked the 17th-consecutive month with at-least-D2 plaguing portions of the local area, the 11th-straight month with at-least Extreme Drought (D3) afflicting some of the area, and the third consecutive month with worst-off Exceptional Drought (D4) rearing its ugly head within a handful of eastern counties. Although drought of varying seriousness remained entrenched area-wide throughout June, and the recent trend of generally wetter (west) versus drier (east) continued, on a positive note these disparities were not as extreme as they were in May (in other words, the difference between the haves and have nots were not quite as stark). Focusing on county-level USDM drought category specifics during June, the majority of South Central Nebraska remained stable/unchanged. However, on an encouraging note, at least parts of several western counties realized 1-category improvement, while on the flip side, parts of several eastern counties suffered 1-category degradation. Digging into the details, the month opened with worst-off D3/D4 dominating most counties along/east of Highway 281, with D4 enveloping at least the vast majority of the following counties: Polk, York, Fillmore, Nance, Merrick, Hamilton and Clay. Meanwhile, the vast majority of counties west of Highway 281 (along with Greeley and most of Howard counties) featured D2, except for a sliver of D1 in western Furnas County. On the first USDM issuance of the month, some localized improvement occurred as much of mainly Webster County went from D3 to D2. Then, a few weeks later the majority of monthly changes occurred, as at least parts of several western counties (including all of Gosper/Phelps) improved from D2 to D1, while in the east, parts of several counties (namely Clay, Fillmore, Thayer and Nuckolls) deteriorated from D3 to D4. Following this degradation, roughly one-fourth of South Central Nebraska was mired in worst-off D4...the highest areal coverage in over 10 years (since April 2013). At month's end, the drought situation stood as follows: 1) Worst-off D4 encompassed much of the eastern one-fourth of the area (including all of Polk, Hamilton, York and Fillmore counties)...2) A relatively narrow buffer zone of D3 resided along the periphery of the D4 (including the vast majority of Adams/Hall counties)...3) The remainder of locations sported a varied mix of D2/D1, but with Gosper/Phelps being the only counties entirely assigned better-off D1.

Turning to June 2023 precipitation details, there was again a fair amount of variability across the area (just not as extreme as during May). The majority of the 24-county domain registered somewhere between 2-5 inches...generally 50-125 percent of normal. Roughly two-thirds of the area checked in at least slightly below normal, but only around 10% of South Central Nebraska received less than half of normal. As was the case during May, the overall-highest totals favored the western half of the area while the overall-lowest amounts targeted eastern counties (particularly York County). In fact, the NWS observer near York exemplified a particularly dire situation, as the year-to-date total through the end of June was merely 6.97...an incredible 8.40 below normal and marking the driest first half of a year since 1970! Per around 170 NWS and NeRAIN/CoCoRaHS observers, some of the lowest June rainfall totals included: 1.67 near York, 1.70 at McCool Junction, 1.71 in Belgrade and 1.78 near Hardy. In sharp contrast, among the very-highest monthly tallies featured: 7.37 near Juniata, 6.65 near Rockville, 6.48 at Kearney airport (NWS observer) and 5.81 four miles east of Arcadia.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1098931. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.