Drought — Thayer, Nebraska

2024-08-20 to 2024-08-31 · Thayer, Nebraska

Wider weather episode

Following a 3.5 month respite (since early-May) with no worse than Moderate Drought (D1) assigned to any portion of this 24-county South Central Nebraska area by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), August 2024 unfortunately brought the return of Severe Drought (D2) to parts of southern Thayer and extreme southeastern Nuckolls counties...along with a decent increase in the coverage of D1 and Abnormally Dry (D0) for several other counties. These degradations were driven by persistently drier-than-normal conditions/gradually increasing rainfall deficits from June-August across the majority of the local area. Specifically in August, a little over three-fourths of the 24-county domain registered at least slightly below normal rainfall (see below for more detailed August precipitation info). Taking a closer look at changes in USDM drought categories within South Central Nebraska between the end of May and the end of August, May closed with no D2 in sight, but roughly 41% of the area was assigned either D0 or D1...almost entirely within counties along/east of Highway 281. Thanks largely to a notably wet start to July, the entirety of South Central Nebraska spent a few weeks entirely void of drought categories whatsoever (including D0). However, with the majority of July into August trending much drier in most places, both D0/D1 gradually crept back into parts of the area (particularly to counties south of Interstate 80), but D2 was held at bay. Unfortunately, this changed with the August 20th USDM issuance, which introduced a fairly localized zone of D2 to parts of southern Thayer and extreme southeastern Nuckolls counties. This unwelcomed return of D2, along with further expansion of D0/D1, made the end-of-August drought breakdown for South Central Nebraska stand as follows: 1) The aforementioned D2 in Thayer/Nuckolls counties constituted only a little over 1% of the 24-county area...2) Roughly 8% of the area contained D1 (mostly within Thayer, Nuckolls, Fillmore and Webster counties)...3) Approximately 30% of the domain featured D0 (mostly concentrated in counties both along/east of Highway 281 and along/south of I-80)...4) The remaining approximately 61% of the area hung onto drought-free D-nothing.

Turning to August 2024 rainfall details, roughly 77% of South Central Nebraska checked in at least slightly below normal (meaning less than roughly 3.34), but more concerningly, around 9% of the area picked up less than half of its monthly normal (this was mainly found within parts of some northern/central counties). Of the less than one-fourth of the area that managed to pick up modestly above normal rainfall, this mainly focused within extreme southwestern counties (such as Furnas/Gosper) and also extreme northeastern counties (such as Polk/Nance). Per around 164 NWS and NeRAIN/CoCoRaHS observers, some of the very-driest August gauge totals included: 1.04 six miles west of Elyria, 1.12 near Arcadia, 1.27 eight miles northwest of Superior, 1.42 in Ord and 1.56 at the NWS Hastings office. As for the limited number of above normal August totals, they included: 5.58 in Wilsonville, 5.44 five miles southeast of Cambridge, 4.97 in Polk, and 4.86 five miles southwest of Columbus. Taking a closer look at data from the NWS Cooperative Observer in Hubbell (within the freshly introduced D2 zone in Thayer County), year-to-date precipitation through the end of August totaled 20.25...only 1.99 below normal/91% of normal. However, the last-60-days total as of Aug. 31st was only 4.67...2.73 below normal/63% of normal.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1199448. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.