Drought — Mitchell, Kansas

2024-05-01 to 2024-05-06 · Mitchell, Kansas

Wider weather episode

May 2024 featured a mixed bag of news in the drought department within this six-county North Central Kansas area. On a very positive note, the entire area became void of Severe Drought (D2) for the first time in 23 months...since June 2022 (per the U.S. Drought Monitor/USDM). On the flip side, May rainfall was not overly-abundant within the six counties as a whole, keeping the majority of locations in Moderate Drought (D1) or Abnormally Dry (D0) conditions. Although not as severely dry across the domain as a whole than in April, May nonetheless marked the second-straight month of prevailing below normal precipitation, with roughly 70 percent of the area falling at least slightly shy of normal (see below for more detailed monthly precipitation info). Focusing on county-level USDM drought category specifics during the month, May opened with roughly 76% of North Central Kansas assigned anywhere from D0 to D2, with a more detailed breakdown as follows: 1) D2 encompassed roughly 12% of the area (including roughly half of Mitchell County and smaller sections of primarily Jewell/Rooks counties)...2) D1 comprised around 37% of the area (including decent portions of Rooks/Osborne/Mitchell/Jewell counties)...3) D0 prevailed over approximately 27% of the area (including parts of all counties except Mitchell)...4) The remaining approximately 24% of North Central Kansas featured drought-free D-nothing...particularly within much of Smith and northern Phillips counties. Over the course of the month, various locales managed to pick up rain on a regular basis, albeit not typically of great abundance. Nonetheless, it was sufficient enough to drive at least one-category drought improvement across roughly one-third of the area. This was highlighted by the early-May removal of D2 from affected portions of Mitchell, Jewell, Rooks and Osborne counties (on the May 7th USDM issuance). As May wore on, the coverage of D1 also diminished, including its removal from the majority of Jewell County, along with far western Rooks and southern Phillips counties. In the wake of the various improvements, the end-of-May drought breakdown stood as follows: 1) D1 decreased to approximately 26% of the area (primarily within Osborne/Mitchell counties...2) Due to the aforementioned reduction in the coverage of D2/D1, there was a corresponding increase in D0...up to around 53% of the domain...3) The remaining roughly 21% of North Central Kansas boasted drought-free D-nothing...still almost entirely within much of Smith and northern Phillips counties.

Turning to May 2024 rainfall details, there was a fair amount of variability to be sure, but officially, roughly 70% of North Central Kansas registered at least slightly below normal precipitation (meaning less than roughly 4.17). Fortunately though (and unlike in April), most places were not severely dry, with even most of the driest locales picking up at least 2-3. However, there was a portion of south central into east central Osborne County where radar-estimation suggested that rainfall totaled no more than 1.00-1.50 (no ground-truth measurements available). Of the roughly 30% of the domain that received above normal rainfall, it was mostly concentrated within a narrow, northwest-southeast oriented swath running across the heart of Phillips County and southward along the Rooks/Osborne County line, with various other localized pockets of above normal rain noted within northern/eastern Jewell counties along with extreme southeastern Mitchell County. Per around 30 NWS/CoCoRaHs observers, along with a few Kansas Mesonet stations, some of the driest known May totals included: 2.06 in Osborne, 2.31 in Plainville and 2.59 ten miles south-southwest of Beloit. Meanwhile, the small number of solidly above normal totals were led by: 6.58 at Kirwin Dam, 6.36 near Burr Oak and 5.97 seven miles north-northeast of Natoma. Putting some perspective on the cumulative drought improvement within North Central Kansas over the last six months (Dec. 2023-May 2024), the area went from having around 85% of places assigned D1 to D3 (Extreme) categories in early-December (including around 73% D2-D3)...to completely eliminating D2-D3 and having only around 26% of the domain assigned less-serious D1 by late-May.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1175616. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.