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Independence, MO —
The mid-week rain helped – temporarily – but the National Weather Service confirms that the area’s drought is steadily growing more severe.
The Kansas City area has had only about half of the normal amount of rainfall since April, and most of Missouri and Kansas are rated as abnormally dry, if not worse.
From April 1 through Wednesday, the Weather Service officially recorded just 4.63 inches of rain, roughly one-third of the normal 12.46 inches, at Kansas City International Airport. Readings in Lee’s Summit and Olathe were a little better, but each was about half of normal.
This doesn’t count the good soaking much of the area got early Thursday morning – 1.09 inches in Lee’s Summit, 0.92 at KCI – but the Weather Service says any relief will be temporary. April, May and June constitute the typically wettest time of year in this part of the country, but it’s been not only dry, but warm, and that is drying out topsoil enough to take a toll on crops. The metro area has already had one 95-plus day this week – the first time in 25 years that one came so early – and other is likely with a forecast high of 100 on Sunday. Meanwhile, there’s no rain in the immediate forecast, and Weather Service modeling suggests weather that’s warmer and drier than normal is likely through July.
The upshot is that Jackson County is now part of a wide area of Missouri considered in moderate drought. That area runs from the northwest part of the state to the central and south-central parts and east almost to St. Louis. It’s somewhat worse – rated as severe drought – in northeast Missouri, a handful of counties on the Arkansas border and a large area – Potosi, Park Hills, West Plains – south of St. Louis.
Then there are all or parts of 13 counties in southeast Missouri – including Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Poplar Bluff – that are in extreme drought. That area extends into parts of Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, one of about 10 extreme-drought areas dotting the country, mostly in the Southwest.
It’s not quite as bad in Kansas, where most counties are rated as being in moderate or severe drought. There’s also an area – southeast Kansas plus a dozen counties in Missouri south of Kansas City – where the rating is still the more modest “abnormally dry.”
Generally speaking, the farther south in Missouri you go, the drier the topsoil is rated at the moment. The Weather Service reports farmers in west-central Missouri cutting corn for silage and others holding off on planting soybeans. The dry conditions are hampering corn and soybean plants that are in the ground.
The mid-week rain helped – temporarily – but the National Weather Service confirms that the area’s drought is steadily growing more severe.
The Kansas City area has had only about half of the normal amount of rainfall since April, and most of Missouri and Kansas are rated as abnormally dry, if not worse.
From April 1 through Wednesday, the Weather Service officially recorded just 4.63 inches of rain, roughly one-third of the normal 12.46 inches, at Kansas City International Airport. Readings in Lee’s Summit and Olathe were a little better, but each was about half of normal.
This doesn’t count the good soaking much of the area got early Thursday morning – 1.09 inches in Lee’s Summit, 0.92 at KCI – but the Weather Service says any relief will be temporary. April, May and June constitute the typically wettest time of year in this part of the country, but it’s been not only dry, but warm, and that is drying out topsoil enough to take a toll on crops. The metro area has already had one 95-plus day this week – the first time in 25 years that one came so early – and other is likely with a forecast high of 100 on Sunday. Meanwhile, there’s no rain in the immediate forecast, and Weather Service modeling suggests weather that’s warmer and drier than normal is likely through July.
The upshot is that Jackson County is now part of a wide area of Missouri considered in moderate drought. That area runs from the northwest part of the state to the central and south-central parts and east almost to St. Louis. It’s somewhat worse – rated as severe drought – in northeast Missouri, a handful of counties on the Arkansas border and a large area – Potosi, Park Hills, West Plains – south of St. Louis.
Then there are all or parts of 13 counties in southeast Missouri – including Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Poplar Bluff – that are in extreme drought. That area extends into parts of Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, one of about 10 extreme-drought areas dotting the country, mostly in the Southwest.
It’s not quite as bad in Kansas, where most counties are rated as being in moderate or severe drought. There’s also an area – southeast Kansas plus a dozen counties in Missouri south of Kansas City – where the rating is still the more modest “abnormally dry.”
Generally speaking, the farther south in Missouri you go, the drier the topsoil is rated at the moment. The Weather Service reports farmers in west-central Missouri cutting corn for silage and others holding off on planting soybeans. The dry conditions are hampering corn and soybean plants that are in the ground.
The Missouri Department of Agriculture on Friday said 82 percent of the state’s topsoil was short or very short of moisture. Subsoil moisture was rated as 76 percent short or very short.
Experts at the University of Missouri say the recent weather statewide is more typical of July and say the area is experiencing a “flash drought.” The statewide average rainfall in May was 2.3 inches, the eighth driest on record going back to 1895. Preliminary data also indicate that May was, on average, 5 degrees warmer than normal and one of the five warmest on record.
More broadly, temperatures from March through May added up to the warmest spring on record across the state. It was a full 3 degrees warmer, on average, than it was in 1977, when the previous record was set.
Pat Guinan, a climatologist with University of Missouri Extension, says a dry May usually leads into an abnormally hot and dry summer.
