Matt Makens

More than 95 million residents in the Lower 48 are currently in drought areas,
with little improvement in total drought area reported since last week.

Here is the updated monitor:

The most notable improved areas recently have been Colorado's eastern plains and
parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. 

The most prominent drought areas continue to be the Southwestern US and the
Northern Plains. The Western US is likely to see drought remain and increase
through June, meanwhile, parts of Texas may see continued improvement.

A quick recap of the total precipitation received in the past month:

Looking forward through June, we are likely to see areas of drought increase in
the Northwest, and perhaps some improvement in Texas and New Mexico.

This fits with the expected precipitation for the next two weeks to be more than
normal in parts of Southern Colorado, New Mexico and Texas (green and blue
shades). Note the opposite, drier conditions in brown and red shades, for the
Northwest.

In terms of total precipitation estimates, not the anomaly as shown above, we
have the following projection through June 13th:

The two images above support the government's forecast for June:

As far as temperatures, just like we updated previously in looking at the west
turning hot, the NOAA projection for June is shown and supports our earlier
forecasts for heat building throughout the prevalent drought areas:

Drought update & the outlook: Thursday, June 3rd, 2021