June started off strong in terms of rainfall, repeated rounds of storms that afternoon brought Eppley Airfield around 0.89" of rain! Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Storms have developed, even in the metro, but they all managed to dodge Eppley Airfield for the most part. Here is the breakdown in the rain so far this June.
Rainfall has varied across the metro due to the spotty nature of the storms. Here is a short list of rainfall totals across the metro so far this June:
Ralston - 1.56"
Millard - 1.28"
West Omaha - 1.71"
Elkhorn - 1.72"
Valley - 1.85"
Bennington - 0.92"
In Sarpy County, where rainfall has been more plentiful, the rain totals are slightly higher:
Papillion - 2.37"
La Vista - 2.57"
Bellevue - 1.90"
Springfield - 2.44"
Gretna - 1.53"
Across eastern Nebraska, rainfall totals are higher:
Lincoln - 2.58"
Norfolk - 2.61"
Columbus - 0.50"
Fremont - 2.01"
Blair - 1.51"
Tekamah - 1.13"
West Point - 2.49"
Wayne - 2.34"
Wahoo - 2.36"
Plattsmouth - 2.96"
Nebraska City - 3.16"
Auburn - 2.35"
Falls City - 2.14"
Beatrice - 1.47"
Crete - 0.99"
Seward - 1.87"
David City - 0.93"
In western Iowa, rainfall totals were a bit lower:
Council Bluffs - 1.94"
Logan - 1.27"
Mapleton - 0.40"
Denison - 1.78"
Carroll - 1.82"
Harlan - 1.76"
Audubon - 1.74"
Oakland - 2.00"
Atlantic - 2.01"
Red Oak - 0.44"
Corning - 0.86"
Glenwood - 2.67"
Sidney - 1.52"
Shenandoah - 1.19"
Clarinda - 1.48"
Bedford - 1.09"
The dry June, on the back of the record-dry May, continues to sink us further down the deficit for rainfall. We are roughly 6" below our yearly average so far. We had a wet winter, which helped us keep from slipping into the record books of any driest years on record
This all leads us to today's drought update, the extreme (red, 4/5) drought category has been expanded east and south to encompass the entirety of the Omaha metro. The exceptional drought (brown, 5/5) has been extended into Saline County. Meanwhile, drought has worsened across much of western Iowa, with Red Oak and Atlantic now in severe drought.
In order to break the drought, we need roughly 150% of our normal precipitation for the rest of the year to break it. So unless we start seeing some very wet months, the drought is likely to remain around for at least the next several months.
So, is there any relief? We have a chance of storms on Saturday, which might bring some rainfall on top of the possibility of strong/severe storms. Afterward, we look to be dry at least through the middle part of next week.
