We’ve gotten some rain to start off the month of May, which has been a welcome sight. (Unless you’re a farmer trying to plant, then I’m sorry!) We still have a long way to go before we can overcome drought conditions through much of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, but we’re slowly chipping away it.
We’re only 10 days into May, but let’s take a look at how much rain we’ve seen so far this month and through this point of 2022. If you remember from the May Preview blog post, May is Omaha’s rainiest month on average, coming in at 4.66” of rain. So far, we’ve measured 1.37” of rain out at Eppley. That’s juuuust barely above average for this point in the month. For 2022 as a whole, we’ve measured 6.51” of rain. That’s 1.40” below average for this point in the year.
We do have a few more rain chances heading our way this week.
While some isolated showers and storms are possible on Wednesday, the next best chance for more widespread rain and storms looks to be late Thursday into early Friday. Some of these storms could be strong to severe and the Storm Prediction Center currently (as of Tuesday afternoon) has eastern Nebraska and western Iowa within the Slight and Enhanced risk areas. The Enhanced risk area basically covers I-80 and north with the Slight risk area for I-80 and south. This will change between now and Thursday, so stay tuned to KMTV for the latest updates.
It’s hard to tell for sure how much rain we’ll see out of these storms, but models generally have the area ranging from a tenth of an inch to about a half an inch. These totals could be higher if a storm moves right over your backyard. We’ll take what we can get!
Don’t forget to have multiple ways to get severe weather alerts. This includes our Storm Shield app, a NOAA weather radio, turning your alerts on for your phone, and watching 3 News Now. Outdoor warning sirens are useful, but are only intended to warn those outside.
