Drought — Mitchell, Kansas

2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Mitchell, Kansas

Wider weather episode

On the heels of a promising winter 2023-24 season that brought above normal precipitation and drought improvement to this six-county North Central Kansas area, spring 2024 slowed the positive momentum. Following a March with at least slightly below normal precipitation across at least a slight majority of the area, April featured widespread below normal precipitation across the vast majority of the domain (see below for more detailed monthly precipitation info). As a result, for the first time in nearly a year, a calendar month featured greater areal coverage of drought degradation than improvement (per weekly issuances of the U.S. Drought Monitor/USDM). As a result, all six counties featured varying coverage of at least Moderate Drought (D1) during April, while five of the six counties held onto (or saw expansion of) D2 Severe Drought. April actually marked the 27th-consecutive month with at least D2 drought plaguing parts of the area. Focusing on April county-level USDM drought specifics, the month opened with roughly 76 percent of the six-county area assigned categories ranging from D0 (Abnormally Dry) to D2, with a more detailed breakdown as follows: 1) A few splotches of D2 nicked at least small portions of five of the six counties (except Phillips), but only constituted around 4% of the total domain...2) D1 comprised roughly 37% of North Central Kansas (including sizeable portions of Jewell/Mitchell/Rooks counties)...3) D0 resided across roughly 35% of the area (including the majority of Rooks and Osborne counties)...4) the remaining approximately 24% of the area featured drought-free D-nothing (mainly within Smith/northern Phillips counties). Over the course of the month, most of North Central Kansas actually maintained status quo (including all of Phillips/Rooks and most of Smith counties). However, due to the prevailing dryness, decent portions of especially Mitchell/Osborne counties saw one-category degradation, with some places going from D1 to D2, and others going from D0 to D1. On one small positive note, a weather system late in the month on the 25th-26th brought beneficial rainfall of at least 1-3 to parts of especially Jewell and far northeastern Mitchell counties, prompting a few small pockets of one-category improvement. As a result of these changes, the end-of-April drought breakdown stood as follows: 1) coverage of D2 increased to now include roughly 12% of North Central Kansas (including roughly half of Mitchell County)...2) although it now enveloped more of especially Osborne County, the coverage of D1 across the six counties as a whole remained similar at roughly 37%...3) coverage of D0 decreased to around 27% of the area (mainly due to D1 taking over more of Osborne County)...4) the area of D-nothing focused primarily within Smith/northern Phillips counties remained unchanged, still constituting around 24% of the domain.

Turning to April 2024 precipitation details, there were overall few positives to be found. Putting numbers to it, not only did around 90% of the six-county area register below normal precipitation (meaning less than roughly 2.31), but roughly half of North Central Kansas measured less than half its April normal (especially portions of Phillips/Rooks/Osborne/Mitchell counties). The only localized pockets of slightly above normal precipitation were mainly found within a narrow, west-east swath across central Jewell County. Per around 30 NWS/CoCoRaHs observers along with a few Kansas Mesonet stations, some of the paltriest April totals included: 0.44 six miles east of Phillipsburg, 0.49 at Webster Lake Dam, 0.56 five miles north of Plainville, and 0.65 in Cawker City. Meanwhile, a few of the only known very-near to above normal totals featured: 4.13 in Formoso, 3,04 near Burr Oak and 2.36 in Lebanon. On one final note, and as a testament to the magnitude of lingering/building longer-term drought: the NWS Cooperative Observer in Beloit totaled only 63.95 over the 37-month stretch from April 2021-April 2024...25.89 BELOW normal/71% of normal.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1171019. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.