It’s no secret that eastern Nebraska and western Iowa are both incredibly dry and in need of more moisture. It’ll be a while before we see drought conditions really improve, but hopefully some rain chances this week can make a small improvement.
Here’s where we stand right now. In Omaha, we’ve picked up a little over half an inch of rain for the month of April. That’s basically an inch below average for this far into the month. For the whole of 2022, Omaha has measured just over four inches of rain, also down about an inch for this far into the year.
Looking at the latest information from the Drought Monitor (data from 4/12/22), you can see just how dry parts of our area are. Severe drought conditions exist in northeastern Nebraska with the rest of eastern Nebraska in Moderate drought conditions or “dry.” Northwestern Iowa also falls into the Moderate and Dry categories with finally some improvement by the time you get to southwestern Iowa as the area is not experiencing any drought conditions.
Rain chances are back in the forecast for parts of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and even Saturday.
Through Wednesday, it doesn’t look like a lot of rain for us, but we’ll take what we can get. Totals likely end up between about a tenth to a quarter of an inch for most. In the Thursday through Saturday time frame, some of us could see up to an inch or inch and a half of rain, but that’s a few days out still and will more likely depend on where we see storms.
While we’ve got a bit of an active week ahead, there’s a chance we dry out a bit more after this week. The Climate Prediction Center shows that our rain potential is leaning towards below average for the April 25-29th time frame.
