Drought in Nebraska, October 1 to 31, 2022

During at least some portion of October 2022, at least parts of 21 of the 24 South Central Nebraska counties were assigned Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), with parts of four northeastern counties in worse off Extreme Drought (D3). This marked the ninth consecutive month that D2 plagued parts of the local area and the third straight month with limited areal coverage of D3. Following somewhat encouraging September precipitation trends for portions of the area (roughly one-third 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 at least portions of 18 South Central Nebraska counties assigned D2 (primarily within the northwest half of the area): Valley, Greeley, Nance, Sherman, Howard, Merrick, Polk, Dawson, Buffalo, Hall, Gosper, Phelps, Kearney, Adams, Fillmore, Furnas, Harlan and Franklin. Meanwhile, portions of three northeastern counties (Nance, Merrick, Howard) started off with D3, with D3 encompassing the majority of Nance. Outside of these worst-off D2/D3 areas, Moderate Drought (D1) reigned across much of the remainder of the local area, except for a stripe of Abnormally Dry (D0) across southern portions of Franklin, Webster, Nuckolls and Thayer counties. Over the course of the month, drought categories remained fairly stable/unchanged across the majority of the 24-county area. However, during the second and third weeks of October some degradation occurred within some eastern counties, highlighted by D2 introduction into much of Hamilton/Clay counties and limited sections of York County, along with expansion of D2 to include more of Fillmore/Polk counties. In addition, D3 not only expanded eastward to now include parts of northern Polk County, but also more of Nance and northern Merrick counties, with only the far northwest fringes of Nance still hanging onto D2. In addition, a small zone of D1 in northern Valley/Greeley counties was degraded to D2. Finally, the last USDM issuance of the month kept all D2/D3 areas unchanged, but expanded D1 across the remainder of Franklin, Webster and Nuckolls counties. As a result, only parts of southeastern Thayer County hung onto D0 throughout October.

Turning to October 2022 precipitation details, unfortunately not only did ALL of South Central Nebraska 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 0.25-1.00. On the very worst off side of things were Polk/York counties, where paltry totals per NWS/CoCoRaHS observers included merely 0.03 near Stromsburg, 0.05 near Shelby (driest Oct. since at least 1994), 0.11 in Osceola (driest Oct. since 1999) and 0.16 north of Bradshaw. On the wettest (but still below normal) side of things, some of the highest amounts focused within parts of Buffalo, Phelps, Kearney and Valley counties, featuring: 1.35 in Gibbon, 1.26 at Kearney airport, 1.19 in Holdrege and 1.12 in Ord. Concluding with a look at increasingly-concerning longer-term drought trends, the majority of South Central Nebraska racked up cumulative precipitation deficits of 10-20 inches during the 19-month period between April 2021-Oct. 2022 (precipitation amounts generally 55-80% of normal). One of the most dire totals of all during that 19-month stretch was found in southwestern Nance County, where a CoCoRaHS observer nine miles northeast of Palmer tallied just 26.23 (21.93 below normal/54% of normal).