Drought — Polk, Nebraska

2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Polk, Nebraska

Wider weather episode

Throughout December 2023, at least portions of 17 of the 24 South Central Nebraska counties were assigned at least Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), with roughly the eastern one-third of the area mired in Extreme Drought (D3) to Exceptional Drought (D4) throughout the month as a long-term drought situation persisted. December marked the 23rd-consecutive month with at least D2 plaguing portions of the local area, the 17th-straight month with at least D3 afflicting some locations, and the ninth-consecutive month with worst-off D4 maintaining its grim grasp on some eastern counties. Despite this overall-poor drought situation, December actually featured some positive news as roughly 80 percent of the area received above normal monthly precipitation, prompting modest improvement (reduction) in the areal coverage of worst-off D3/D4 (see below for more specific monthly precipitation details). Focusing on December county-level USDM drought category specifics, the vast majority of South Central Nebraska maintained status quo throughout the month, including almost zero change west of the Highway 281 corridor where a varied mix of better-off Moderate Drought (D1), Abnormally Dry (D0) and some areas indicated to be void of all drought categories prevailed. Going into more detail, December opened with the drought category breakdown as follows: 1) Worst-off D4 plagued portions of nine counties along and especially east of Highway 281, including the vast majority of Polk, Hamilton and York, but fortunately only constituting around 17% of South Central Nebraska...2) A sizable buffer zone of D3 surrounded the D4 area, with the combined D3+D4 ruling much of the eastern half of the domain and accounting for roughly 42% of the total area...3) A smaller buffer zone of D2 flanked the western fringe of the D3 swath mainly within counties along Highway 281 (only comprising around 7% of the area)...4) A similarly narrow, wavy stripe of Moderate Drought (D1) cut through several central local counties along the western edge of the D2 (also making up roughly 7% of South Central Nebraska)...5) The majority of the western half of the area, along with far northern local counties, featured a mix of Abnormally Dry (D0) and places deemed void of all drought categories whatsoever (including D0), with the combined D0+ D-nothing areas constituting around 44% of the domain. The overall-greatest areal coverage of D-nothing prevailed within the following southwestern counties: Gosper, Phelps, Furnas and Harlan. During the overall-dry first half of the month, there was almost zero change in drought categories (save for a sliver of northwestern Furnas County that actually degraded from D-nothing to D0). However, the mid-late portions of December brought two widespread/beneficial precipitation events, the first centered on the 14th-15th (almost entirely rain) and the latter centered on the 24th-25th (rain then snow). Each of these events brought widespread precipitation totals of at least 0.50-1.00 to especially the eastern two-thirds of South Central Nebraska. As a result, portions of several counties along and especially east of Highway 281 saw 1-category drought improvement. This included the removal of worst-off D4 from all of Clay County and most of Hamilton/York counties, and also removal of D3 from much of Nuckolls County and smaller portions of Webster, Adams and Thayer counties. Despite these improvements, the combined areal coverage of D3+D4 still constituted roughly 37% of South Central Nebraska at month's end.

Turning to December 2023 precipitation details, it was mostly good news across the area, with around 80% of the domain measuring at least slightly above normal amounts (meaning more than roughly 0.83), and around 30% of South Central Nebraska boasting at least twice normal (mainly east of a Fullerton-Hastings-Franklin line). That being said, there was certainly an east (wetter) to west (drier) disparity, with the roughly 20% of the area that saw below normal precipitation clearly concentrated within far western counties such as Dawson, Gosper and Furnas. Per over 140 NWS and NeRAIN/CoCoRaHS observers, some of the highest monthly precipitation totals featured: 2.68 near Ohiowa, 2.33 seven miles north-northeast of Central City, 2.26 near Hordville and 2.23 in Alexandria. Long-time NWS Cooperative Observer sites at Red Cloud (2.13) and Hebron (2.02) actually registered their 4th and 11th-wettest December on record, respectively. Meanwhile, on the much drier side of things in far western counties, some of the lowest December tallies included: 0.33 in Cambridge, 0.35 five miles southwest of Beaver City, 0.37 near Lexington and 0.39 in Arapahoe. Despite places such as Grand Island airport (GRI) receiving solidly above normal December precipitation, longer-term deficits remained prominent, as GRI totaled only 49.54 over the 33-month period from April 2021-Dec. 2023...27.55 BELOW normal/64% of normal.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1146710. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.