Drought — Rooks, Kansas

2023-11-01 to 2023-11-30 · Rooks, Kansas

Wider weather episode

Throughout November 2023, the bulk of this six-county North Central Kansas area spent the entire month assigned at least Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), with around 85 percent of the domain mired in at least Moderate Drought (D1) during the month as a long-term drought situation dragged on. November marked the 22nd-consecutive month with at-least-D2 afflicting portions of the local area, and the eighth-straight month with at least limited coverage of Extreme Drought (D3). For North Central Kansas as a whole, November was a mixed bag, as although few places were excessively dry, a slight majority of the area still registered at least slightly below normal precipitation. This marked the third consecutive month with prevailing below normal precipitation across most of the six counties (see below for more specific monthly precipitation details). Focusing on November county-level USDM drought category specifics, and despite the prevailing dryness, essentially all of North Central Kansas maintained status quo throughout the month (save for a trivial sliver of one-category degradation in southwestern Rooks County). Delving deeper into the details, drought categories stood as follows throughout November: 1) A few separate swaths of D3 continued to constitute at least 20% of the six-county area, most prevalent within the majority of Rooks and western Mitchell counties...2) A sizeable swath of D2 surrounded the D3 zone, including the majority of Osborne, Jewell and Mitchell counties, with the combined D2+D3 areas representing around 75% of North Central Kansas...3) Limited coverage of D1 (under 10% of the total area) persisted across parts of Phillips and Smith counties...4) Best-off Abnormally Dry (D0) continued to rule much of northern Phillips and northwestern Smith counties (but only accounting for around 15% of the local area).

Turning to November 2023 precipitation details, it was an overall-disappointing, but also not a truly dire situation within the six-county area. More specifically, although around 60% of the area received below normal amounts (meaning less than roughly 1.18), only around 10% of North Central Kansas saw less than half-normal totals. Thanks in large part to a rain event that occurred on the 19th-20th, there was a distinct east (wetter) vs. west (drier) disparity across the area for the month, with Highway 281 serving as roughly the dividing line between above/below normal. The overall-wettest local counties (albeit only modestly above normal) were clearly Jewell/Mitchell, while Phillips County was the overall-driest. Per around 30 ground-truth gauges (NWS/CoCoRaHS observers and a few KS Mesonet stations), some of the lowest November tallies included: 0.26 in Logan, 0.36 in Phillipsburg and 0.59 at Natoma. Meanwhile, a few of highest monthly totals from Jewell/Mitchell counties featured: 1.87 seven miles northeast of Beloit, 1.71 in Beloit and 1.62 at Lovewell Dam. Finishing with a quick-stat highlighting the increasingly-impressive, longer-term drought situation within North Central Kansas, and focusing on one of the driest (versus normal) official NWS Cooperative Observer sites since early-2021, Beloit totaled just 56.90 during the 32-month stretch from April 2021-Nov. 2023...a notable 26.35 below normal/68% of normal.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1143906. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.