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National Drought Summary -- June 30, 2009

The discussion in the Looking Ahead section is simply a description of what the official national guidance from the National Weather Service (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction is depicting for current areas of dryness and drought. The NWS forecast products utilized include the HPC 5-day QPF and 5-day Mean Temperature progs, the 6-10 Day Outlooks of Temperature and Precipitation Probability, and the 8-14 Day Outlooks of Temperature and Precipitation Probability, valid as of late Wednesday afternoon of the USDM release week. The NWS forecast web page used for this section is: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/forecasts/.

The last half of June was dominated by hot and dry weather from western Oklahoma and the central tier of Texas eastward through the lower Mississippi Valley and occasionally through Georgia and the Carolinas, causing drought to worsen where it already existed, and raising concerns about developing dryness in other parts of the region. Above-normal temperatures also dominated the dry areas near the Great Lakes, where precipitation was not as markedly low, though deterioration was observed in more areas than was improvement. In contrast, widespread moderate rains last week made the southeastern Rockies and southern High Plains the one part of the country where dryness improved on a fairly large scale. Finally, seasonably dry weather kept significant areas of dryness and drought intact across the West.

The East: Moderate rain eliminated abnormally dry conditions across Ohio. However, farther south, rainfall has slackened since the start of June across eastern North Carolina and adjacent areas, and after mid-month, substantially drier than normal weather has dominated most locations from Georgia and central Tennessee westward through the lower Mississippi Valley. Rainfall amounts at least 1.5 inches below normal for the two weeks ending June 30, 2009 were common across this region, and temperatures averaging a few degrees above normal during the same period allowed concerns about developing dryness to increase quickly. At this time, broadscale drought expansion seems premature, but abnormally dry conditions were introduced in areas where temperature and precipitation were both well removed from normal for June as a whole, or where long-term precipitation totals remained below normal because of prior drought conditions. Specifically, eastern North Carolina and nearby adjacent areas, and a few small areas in southwestern, east-central, and north-central Alabama and neighboring sections of south-central Tennessee and west-central Georgia.

Florida: Continued widespread heavy rains finally eliminated a small area of abnormal dryness in southwestern parts of the state, which was the last vestige of severely dry conditions that dominated the state earlier in the year.

Upper Midwest: Generally warmer and drier than normal conditions led to some D0 to D2 expansion, primarily northward (in northwestern Wisconsin and east-central Minnesota) and eastward (through much of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and adjacent northeastern Wisconsin). In addition, a new area of moderate drought was assessed in part of interior west-central Minnesota where April – June precipitation was at least 5 inches below normal. On the other hand, some areas of improvement were also identified, specifically along the northwestern fringe of the region where moderate precipitation was enough to end abnormal dryness, and in part of west-central Wisconsin and adjacent Minnesota where conditions improved to D1 following moderate rains last week.
 
The Plains:  The part of the country where two weeks of hot and dry weather would be least welcome was the one where such conditions were most persistent; specifically, the southern Great Plains, part of which is experiencing the worst drought currently affecting the country (D4, or exceptional drought, which has been entrenched across parts of central and southern Texas for many weeks). Last week, measurable rain fell on only a few peripheral parts of the large drought area encompassing much of the southern half of the state, thus drought conditions in this region almost universally deteriorated. By the time June ended, San Antonio, TX had officially endured its driest 22-month period since records began back in 1885 (23.90 inches, breaking the old record of 26.33 inches from December 1908 through September 1910). The additional fact that June 2009 was one of the five warmest Junes ever experienced there only increased drought stress. Farther east, record low combined May-June rainfall was reported at both Houston, TX and Galveston, TX, with measurements dating back 118 years in both cities. College Station, TX reported its second-driest May-June period on record, and received no measurable rain during June.

Farther north and east, most locations were also warmer and drier than normal last week, but rainfall was not so absolutely absent as it was across the southern half of Texas, and in fact rainfall was sufficiently heavy and widespread to ease dryness in some areas. Most notably, many locations from interior north-central Texas westward through the southern High Plains and southeastern Rockies received at least an inch of rain for the week, with up to 3 inches dousing some areas that have been in drought. As a result, moderate to severe drought coverage declined across both interior north-central Texas and eastern New Mexico, and abnormal dryness was removed from part of west-central Texas. Meanwhile, abnormal dryness and moderate drought both expanded in Oklahoma, far eastern Texas, much of Louisiana, and the southern half of Mississippi. Scattered light rainfall was observed in most of these regions, although as a second consecutive hot week concluded, even scattered moderate to heavy thunderstorms, accompanied by 1 to locally 5 inches of rain, were not enough to prevent some expansion of moderate drought from southeastern Louisiana northward and westward into adjacent Mississippi and southwestern Louisiana.

Finally, scattered D0 areas were again identified from the Dakotas southward through Kansas, though D0 conditions noted last week in northeastern Nebraska and parts of southern and eastern South Dakota were eliminated. The small area of moderate drought in southern Nebraska last week expanded eastward and southward into Kansas this week following only a few tenths of an inch of precipitation this past week.

The West: Substantial changes, generally for the worse, were introduced across Montana this week. Abnormally dry conditions now cover much of the state, the moderate to severe drought in northwestern sections expanded slightly this week, and most notably, a re-assessment of impacts and precipitation observations for the past 3 to 6 months (near or slightly more than half of normal) led to the introduction of moderate to severe drought in parts of northeastern Montana as well. Note that while this represents a decline of 2 drought classifications from last week in most of this region, this is not meant to imply that conditions got that much worse last week. Only that a thorough re-analysis of the region led to its current, more serious drought assessment.

Elsewhere, moderate rains eroded the extent of abnormal dryness and moderate drought in different parts of southeastern Arizona while seasonably dry weather in other parts of the West left D0 to D2 conditions unchanged.

Alaska and Hawaii: Significantly below-normal precipitation on 1- to 3-month time scales is now reported by most locations throughout the southern tier of Alaska from the Panhandle westward through eastern portions of the Aleutians, with the largest deficits (several inches below and less than half of normal for the last 3 months) noted from the southeastern mainland through the west-central islands of the Panhandle. As a result, D0 was expanded to cover most of Alaska’s southern tier, and D1 was extended southeastward into the west-central Panhandle.

In Hawaii, scattered light to moderate rainfall was not enough to change conditions from those assessed last week.

Looking Ahead:  During the next 5 days (July 1 – 5, 2009, few of the areas now experiencing abnormal dryness or drought are expected to receive heavy rain, but there are a few small exceptions, specifically eastern North Carolina (0.5 to 1.5 inches in most areas), the northern Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles and adjacent New Mexico and Colorado (1 to locally 3 inches), and areas near the southern reaches of the Arizona / New Mexico border, fueled by monsoon-related showers (0.5 to 1.5 inches). Those areas now experiencing severe to exceptional drought are forecast to receive a few tenths of an inch of precipitation at best.

For the next 5 days (July 6 – 10, 2009), the odds favor above-normal rainfall for current areas of dryness and drought in southwestern Alaska, the Rockies and High Plains, the central and northern Great Plains, and Minnesota. In contrast, the odds favor drier than normal weather for California and western Oregon, the central Great Lakes region, the lower Mississippi Valley and adjacent Southeast, much of Oklahoma, and unfortunately for the southeastern two-thirds of Texas, including the state’s broad, parched area of severe to exceptional drought.

Author: Rich Tinker, CPC/NCEP/NWS/NOAA

D0 ... Abnormally Dry ... used for areas showing dryness but not yet in drought, or for areas recovering from drought.

Drought Intensity Categories
D1 ... Moderate Drought
D2 ... Severe Drought
D3 ... Extreme Drought
D4 ... Exceptional Drought

Drought or Dryness Types
A ... Agricultural
H ... Hydrological

Updated July 2, 2009