Drought in Kansas, October 1 to 31, 2022

Throughout October 2022, portions of four of the six North Central Kansas counties were assigned Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM). This marked the ninth consecutive month that D2 plagued parts of the local area. Following encouraging September precipitation trends for much of the area (roughly three-fourths of locations had above normal Sept. rainfall), October was overall dry area-wide...see below for more Oct. precipitation details. Focusing on county-level USDM drought category specifics, October opened with the majority of the six counties under a varied mix of Moderate Drought (D1) and Abnormally Dry (D0) conditions, with most of the D0 focused within Jewell, Mitchell and northern Smith counties. On the best-off side of things, much of central/southern Mitchell County was actually void of all drought categories whatsoever. However, of greatest concern were various swaths of D2 within the four western local counties, impacting: 1) much of the northern halves of Rooks/Osborne counties along with most of far southern Phillips/Smith counties...2) a narrow stripe across extreme southern Rooks/Osborne counties...3) a narrow swath through far western Phillips County. Over the course of the month, drought categories were actually stable/unchanged in most places (including all D2 areas). However, late in the month some one-category degradation occurred mainly within the eastern half of the area, as existing D0 within all of Smith/Osborne and most of Jewell counties degraded to D1, while those portions of Mitchell County void of all drought categories assumed D0. As a result, at month's end D0 was present across most of Mitchell and southeastern Jewell counties.

Turning to October 2022 precipitation details, unfortunately not only did ALL of North Central Kansas receive below normal amounts, but around 90 percent of the area measured less than one-half of normal (generally less than 1 inch) and around one-third of the area tallied LESS THAN ONE-FOURTH OF NORMAL (generally less than 0.50). Overall, most locations measured somewhere between 0.35-1.00. On the worst off side of things were western portions of Phillips/Rooks counties, where paltry totals per NWS/CoCoRaHS observers included merely 0.15 in Logan (7th-driest October on record out of 72 years) and 0.20 near Webster State Park. On the wettest (but still below normal) side of things, some of the highest measured amounts focused within Jewell and southern Rooks counties, led by 1.03 near Plainville and 0.98 in Formoso. Concluding with a look at increasingly-concerning longer-term drought trends, the majority of North Central Kansas racked up cumulative precipitation deficits of 10-18 inches during the 19-month period between April 2021-Oct. 2022 (precipitation amounts generally 60-80% of normal). Versus normal, and despite official drought categories, one of the most dire totals of all during that 19-month stretch was actually in Beloit, where the NWS Coop Observer tallied 35.06 (17.90 below normal/66% of normal).