Matt Makens

Water issues continue across the Western US as streamflow nears historic lows,
meanwhile too much water is across the southern Mississippi River region.

As far as the drought itself, here is the latest monitor released today.

Looking over the data table shows a slight increase in drought coverage from
last week.

Visually, here is the drought change as compared to a week ago.

The west and upper Midwest see the growth of drought, but there were
improvements in New Mexico and Texas.

Turning to recent precipitation and how water availability is changing
vegetation health now. The past 30 days have been wettest between Colorado and
Louisiana. This helped knock Colorado's plains out of the drought.

This precipitation surplus feeding the Arkansas and South Platte Rivers has had
some significant impact downstream. The streamflow feeding and through the
Mississippi is quite pronounced. Sadly, however, the surface flow across the
Western US is near all-time lows in some cases.

With that precipitation and surface water, crops are fairing well. However, the
drought in the west and the lack of water for the Northern Plains have left
vegetation struggling. This is the vegetative health through June 6th:

Clearly, looking at vegetation there is a lot of water needed across the Lower
48. Let's check the outlook.

For the next two weeks, the overall pattern is a much drier than average one.
Brown shades indicate deficit areas and greens to blues indicate surplus
moisture.

Let's look at that precipitation in terms of totals. For the next week, through
the 16th:

And for the following week, the 17th through 23rd:

The second week shows promise to get some water to parts of the Corn Belt, but
in both cases not much is expected from the Rockies to the west.

We will continue to read headlines of water quality and availability issues
going through June and beyond across the Western half of the Lower 48.

Drought update & the outlook: Thursday, June 10th, 2021