Drought in Kansas, September 1 to 30, 2024

Despite limited exceptions within eastern counties, the majority of this six-county North Central Kansas area (over 80 percent of it) endured a drier-than-normal September 2024 (see below for more detailed monthly precipitation info). However, given that most of the area was already assigned Moderate Drought (D1) to Severe Drought (D2) by the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) going into September, there was officially no further categorical degradation during the month (September marked the third-straight month with D2 plaguing parts of the area). In fact, the only USDM change during the month involved one-category improvement for those fortunate few places that received above normal rain. Taking a closer look at county-level USDM drought category specifics during September, things opened with D2 assigned to roughly one-fourth of the domain (mainly Jewell/northern Mitchell counties). Meanwhile, the majority of the area (around 68% of it) featured D1 (including all of Rooks and most of Smith/Osborne/Phillips counties. Finally, the remaining approximately 7% of the area consisted of Abnormally Dry (D0) mainly within the northwestern one-third of Phillips County. Over the course of the month, most spots retained status quo despite the building dryness. However, due primarily to a localized, narrow swath of heavy rain on the morning of the 16th, much of particularly northern Mitchell and southwestern Jewell counties actually saw one-category improvement (from D2 to D1). As a result, the end-of-month drought breakdown within North Central Kansas stood as follows: 1) Due to the aforementioned, late-month improvement the coverage of D2 shrank to only around 13% of the area (mostly within central/eastern Jewell County)...2) The coverage of D1 correspondingly increased to encompass approximately 80% of the six-county area...3) The zone of D0 in northwestern Phillips County remained unchanged (still accounting for roughly 7% of the local real estate).

Turning to September 2024 rainfall details, it was mostly (but not completely) bad news. Not only did approximately 83% of North Central Kansas register at least slightly below normal rainfall (meaning less than roughly 2.22), but nearly half of the area received less than half-normal precipitation, and around 16% of the domain registered LESS THAN ONE-FOURTH NORMAL. Some of the overall-driest spots concentrated within parts of Rooks, Phillips and eastern Jewell counties. For a few somewhat-long-time NWS Cooperative Observer sites, this was a Top-5 driest September, including Lovewell Dam (0.64...4th-driest out of 69) and Phillipsburg (0.55...4th-driest of 56). In sharp contrast, at least slightly to very localized significantly above normal monthly rainfall (mainly 2.50-5.50) fell within a narrow swath across primarily parts of eastern Smith, southwestern Jewell and western Mitchell counties. Based on measurements from around 35 NWS/CoCoRaHS observers, along with a few Kansas Mesonet stations, some of the paltriest September totals included: 0.19 six miles east of Phillipsburg, 0.42 just southwest of Phillipsburg, 0.43 in Plainville, 0.55 in Phillipsburg and 0.64 at Lovewell Dam. Meanwhile, a few of the limited, much wetter tallies featured: 5.52 in Cawker City, 3.55 in Lebanon, 3.26 at Glen Elder Lake, and 2.67 nine miles east of Hunter. Per the NWS Cooperative observer in Beloit (which began the month in D2 but officially ended up in D1), year-to-date precipitation through the end of September totaled 17.23...7.62 below normal/69% of normal. However, the majority of this deficit had built up over the summer and early fall, with the cumulative June-September total registering merely 8.42...6.49 below normal/56% of normal.