Matt Makens

The latest drought monitor continues to show the ongoing issues for the Four
Corners region, namely Colorado, and the continued Extreme Drought for the
Western US.

For Colorado, the good news is that Memorial Day/Weekend rainfall kept the
Extreme Drought coverage area from expanding...for now.

Let's check the recent conditions via The National Drought Mitigation Center,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln:

Summary

"During the past week, widespread rain and thunderstorms fell across parts of
the Great Plains, including a few instances of severe weather. Particularly
large amounts of rain in central and eastern Nebraska, as well as in adjacent
states, improved what had been a quickly drying scenario in many locations.
Above-normal precipitation also fell in parts of the Northwest, which led to
improvement in parts (though not all) of the ongoing drought areas there. Large
rainfall amounts also occurred in south Florida and in parts of the central
Florida Panhandle, leading to improvements in or removal of drought in these
locations. Widespread rain in parts of Texas also led to drought improvement in
the state, though some areas that missed out on the rain (particularly in the
Panhandle) saw conditions worsen. Moderate and severe drought were also added to
parts of Molokai and the Big Island in Hawaii. Moderate drought coverage
lessened in southern Louisiana after precipitation fell there."

Observations

The precipitation for the past two weeks is quite wet for those to the east and
for the Pacific Northwest, but very dry for the Southwest. This is the percent
of normal precipitation:



And, the past 30 days:

The Outlook: Week 1

The precipitation outlook for the next week, running through June 4th) is
favorable for the far western US and sections of the Corn Belt, but too much
rainfall is possible in parts of Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. 


The Outlook: Week 2

For week 2, let's see the general probability of drier versus wetter than
average areas:


The Outlook: Month

For the next month, we see a trend toward much drier than average conditions for
brown shaded areas (extremely so in the reds), and wetter than average in the
green shaded regions, that are few.

Bottom Line

With the above outlooks, we are likely to see the drought stabilized for the
next month at least for the northwestern US, but drought is likely to expand
elsewhere, namely Colorado and the Four Corners Regions to parts of Texas.

Drought update & the outlook: Friday, May 29th, 2020