Drought — Harlan, Nebraska

2025-05-27 to 2025-05-31 · Harlan, Nebraska

Wider weather episode

Although the second half of the month was a little more encouraging than the first half, May 2025 nonetheless marked the sixth consecutive month of below normal precipitation across the bulk of South Central Nebraska, driving an increasingly-concerning drought situation. Most notably during May, there was a widespread expansion of Severe Drought (D2) within the area (per the U.S. Drought Monitor/USDM), and Extreme Drought (D3) even made a brief appearance in a few far northern counties (marking the first D3 within the 24-county area since. Jan. 2024). May marked the 10th-straight month with D2 plaguing at least some portion of the area, and as of mid-month several longtime NWS precipitation stations were suffering through their driest start to a calendar year since 1989 (see below for more precipitation details)! Breaking down county-level USDM drought category specifics during May, the month opened with: 1) D2 assigned to only around 4 percent of South Central Nebraska (relatively small portions of Valley/Greeley/Sherman/Dawson counties)...2) Moderate Drought (D1) dominated approximately 91% of the domain...3) The remainder of real estate (around 5% of it) featured best-off Abnormally Dry (D0)...entirely confined to portions of Harlan, Franklin, Thayer, Nuckolls and Fillmore counties. During the first half of the month, considerable dryness spurred on steady degradation, with D2 expanding to include all but mainly the southern-most row of counties. In addition, D3 made a (fortunately) brief appearance within much of Valley County and smaller portions of adjacent Greeley/Sherman counties on the May 13th/20th USDM issuances, but enough rain then fell to allow this area to return to D2 on the May 27th USDM. On another limited positive note, a narrow swath of heavy rain on the 18th-19th brought one-category improvement (from D1 to D0) to portions of several southeastern counties. At month's end, the categorical drought breakdown stood as follows: 1) D2 now blanketed roughly 72% of South Central Nebraska...including at least portions of 21 of the 24 counties (all except Webster/Nuckolls/Thayer)...2) D1 covered approximately 19% of the area...3) The remaining 9% of real estate was assigned D0 (including portions of primarily Nuckolls/Thayer/Fillmore counties).

Turning to May 2025 precipitation details, and leaning heavily on observations from 158 NWS and NeRAIN/CoCoRaHS observers, it was clear that even a modest rainfall rally during the latter half of the month was not enough to keep it from finishing solidly dry. Not only did around 85% of South Central Nebraska register below normal precipitation, but around 24% of it saw less than half-normal amounts and roughly 8% measured less than one-third normal (normal May precipitation across most of the area ranges 3.75-5.00) The majority of monthly totals (the middle 80% of them) ranged from 1.50-4.70. The overall-sparsest May rainfall concentrated from the Tri Cities southwestward through counties such as Phelps/Harlan/Furnas. In contrast, of the roughly 15% of South Central Nebraska that saw above normal rainfall, most of it concentrated within parts of the following counties: Nuckolls, Valley, far southeastern Clay, far southeastern Webster, far northwestern Sherman and far northwesterly Buffalo. Some of the paltriest May totals included: 1.02 near Beaver City, 1.32 in Wilsonville (13th-driest May on record out of 109), 1.40 at Holdrege airport and 1.53 in Edison. Meanwhile, within the localized above normal swaths, there were a few fairly impressive tallies including: 7.29 in Oak, 7.24 six miles south-southeast of Lawrence, 6.71 near Nora, and 6.37 in Nelson.

Broadening out the scope beyond May itself, the worsening drought situation in South Central Nebraska was clearly driven by several months of cumulative dryness. In fact, year-to-date precipitation totals as of May 15th were rather alarming at several longtime NWS stations. At the Tri Cities airports, all three notched a Top-7 driest Jan. 1-May 15, with totals ranging from 2.23-3.05 marking the driest start to any year since 1989. Other significantly dry, year-to-date precipitation totals as of May 15th included: 2.14 in Cambridge, 2.33 three miles northeast of Shelby, 2.50 in Ord, and 2.63 at Wilsonville.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1253221. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.