Nationwide
Heavy rains fell this week across parts of the Midwest, Ohio River Valley and Northeast, which led to widespread improvements from southeast Nebraska to central Illinois, southern Indiana, and central and eastern Kentucky.
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To the south and west, in southern Missouri, the Texas-Louisiana border and other parts of central Texas, drier weather led to worsening precipitation deficits and significant problems with hay production in parts of southern Missouri. Dry weather in the Upper Midwest led to further degrading conditions in parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
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A re-evaluation of conditions in parts of the western Great Plains led to some improvements to long-term dryness and long-term moderate drought in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle region and western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming, respectively. A mix of degradations and improvements occurred in the Pacific Northwest. No changes were made to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) depictions outside of the Lower 48 this week.
The West
With the exception of western portions of Washington and Oregon, much of the West region experienced near- or cooler-than-normal temperatures this week.
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Heavy rains fell in parts of southeast Montana, northwest Wyoming and adjacent portions of central Idaho and southwest Montana. These rains helped alleviate long-term precipitation deficits and increase streamflows in these areas, reducing coverage of ongoing drought and abnormal dryness. Continued above-normal precipitation in parts of central and south-central Oregon has helped to alleviate long-term precipitation deficits and increase soil moisture, leading to localized shrinking of drought coverage. In southeastern and western portions of Washington and western Oregon, recent dry weather, low streamflows and increasing evaporative demand led to an expansion of drought and abnormal dryness in parts of these areas.
The High Plains
This week saw widespread improvements across the Great Plains. Much of the Great Plains portion of the region, with the exception of eastern Kansas, northern North Dakota and western Colorado, saw widespread precipitation, some of it heavy.
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Much of southeast and northwest Nebraska, northeast South Dakota and along the Wyoming-South Dakota border saw rainfall of at least 2 inches over the last week. In western Nebraska, eastern Wyoming and the Dakotas, this led to widespread improvements to the drought depiction in areas where the heaviest rains fell. Nebraska saw the most improvements in the High Plains, with continued improvement in the Panhandle, the Sandhills up to the South Dakota border, and the southeast near Nebraska City.
Meanwhile, conditions continued to worsen in a majority of Kansas, particularly in the east and southeast, where mostly dry weather continued. Given continued decreases in soil moisture and groundwater and growing short- and long-term precipitation deficits, degradations were made from Manhattan to Fort Scott.
The South
Many warmer-than-normal temperatures covered the South as it is enveloped in the continuing heat wave, especially eastern Texas and Louisiana, where temperatures ranged from 4 to 8 degrees above average compared to the rest of the region, where temperatures were near normal to 4 degrees above normal.
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There was an expansion of abnormal dryness and moderate drought along the western Gulf Coast, where temperatures soared and little to no precipitation fell, providing no relief to the low streamflows and dry soil conditions. Tennessee did see the removal of moderate drought conditions along the Tennessee-Kentucky border after heavy rainfall. Conditions were status quo for the rest of the region despite warmer-than-normal temperatures and slightly below-normal precipitation this last week. — UNL Drought Monitor
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