Nationwide
For the drought-monitoring period ending the morning of March 18, significant precipitation fell in parts of the eastern and western United States, while warm, dry, windy weather led to worsening drought across portions of the central and southern Plains and neighboring regions.
In recent days, major spring storms have fueled an extraordinarily active period of U.S. weather, featuring high winds, blowing dust, fast-moving wildfires, severe thunderstorms, torrential rain, and wind-driven snow. Some locations experienced multiple hazards within hours or even simultaneously. High winds and blowing dust were especially severe across the southern High Plains and parts of the Southwest on March 14 and 18, with some locations reporting wind gusts topping 80 mph and visibilities of one-half mile or less. In Oklahoma alone, mid-March wildfires tore across at least 170,000 acres of land and destroyed more than 200 residences. Farther north, wind-blown snow affected portions of the central Plains and upper Midwest, mainly on March 15—and again on March 19-20, early in the new drought-monitoring period.
Meanwhile, a severe weather outbreak from March 14-16 spawned nearly 150 tornadoes from the mid-South into the eastern U.S., based on preliminary reports from the National Weather Service. Early reports indicated that the extreme weather resulted in dozens of fatalities, with causes of death ranging from wildfires to tornadoes to chain-reaction collisions. Elsewhere, occasionally heavy precipitation locally trimmed drought severity, with some of the most extensive improvement occurring in the Southeast.
The West
A pair of Pacific storm systems delivered widespread precipitation, heaviest along the West Coast and in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada.
Parts of central and southern California and the Pacific Northwest noted up to one category of drought improvement. According to the California Department of Water Resources, the water equivalency of the high-elevation Sierra Nevada snowpack improved to nearly 25 inches by March 18, effectively ensuring a “normal” season. Notably, snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada has dramatically improved with recent storms, following an imbalanced start to the winter wet season during which much heavier precipitation fell in the northern Sierra Nevada. Although meaningful precipitation extended into the Southwest, snowpack deficits are so significant that any improvement in the overall drought and water supply situation has been extremely limited. Additionally, harsh winds across the lower Southwest have led to extensive blowing dust in recent days, particularly across the areas of southern New Mexico experiencing severe to exceptional drought (D2 to D4).
High Plains
Significant changes were primarily limited to Kansas, where expansion or introduction of dryness (D0) and moderate to severe drought (D1 to D2) resulted from mostly warm, dry, windy weather.
By March 16, the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicated that statewide topsoil moisture in Kansas was rated 47%, very short to short. Elsewhere, some drought improvement was introduced in central Wyoming, largely based on favorable snowpack observations.
The South
Dire conditions have recently developed across the southern Plains, where the benefits of last November’s record-setting rainfall are quickly diminishing.
During major dust storms on March 14 and 18, wind gusts in Lubbock, Texas, were clocked at 82 and 78 mph, respectively. The March 14 gust was a spring (March-May) record for Lubbock—and marked the highest non-convective gust on record in that location. As the dust blew on March 14, numerous wildfires raged in Oklahoma and neighboring areas in southern Kansas and the northern panhandle of Texas. The dusty scene was repeated on March 18, with visibilities as low as one-quarter to one-half mile widespread across western Texas. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, statewide topsoil moisture in Texas was rated 71% very short to short on March 16, while 71% of the rangeland and pastures were rated in very poor to poor condition. For the week ending March 18, a broad expansion of all drought categories was noted in Oklahoma and Texas. Farther east, however, heavy rain led to large reductions in the coverage of dryness and drought in much of Tennessee. — UNL Drought Monitor
