New numbers are in and we have seen some major improvements in the drought… but we are not out of the woods just yet. Things still don’t look good in the long term. Since April 1st of last year, we have seen 22.79″ of precipitation at KCI. We should be at about 41.65″. This leaves us with a deficit of 18.86″ !
While we struggle in the long term, the short term looks great! Since January 1st of this year, we have seen a total of 8.26″ of precipitation at KCI. That puts us at a surplus of 0.42″ above normal (7.84″). We just need to at least keep up with the rainfall averages and things will continue to improve after last years drought.
So where does this leave us overall? Despite the long term deficit, the Missouri side is almost completely out of the drought! You will see that Northwestern Missouri is still considered to be in a moderate drought, even after the heavy rains and snow they have seen in the past week.
As for our friends to the West… Kansas has seen some big improvements! But they are still hurting pretty bad. Western Kansas is hurting the most. They continue to see extreme to exceptional drought conditions. Eastern Kansas looks much better, but they are still experiencing a moderate to severe drought at this time.
If you would like more information on this weeks drought update, you can find it at: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/eax/?n=drought May 2nd is the next scheduled update.
