4/3 Drought Monitor; OK/TX Panhandle Level 4 Epicenter; Feeble End To SW Snowpack Season

[hatrack]

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South

Similar to mid-February when heavy rains inundated the south-central Great Plains, lower Mississippi, Tennessee, and Ohio Valleys and provided instant relief from drought, heavy rains fell along an identical track, except this time south-central Texas received more precipitation than 6 weeks ago, and Arkansas saw less. Eerily similar was the demarcation line of minimal rain versus decent rain in central Oklahoma where western sections of the state yet again missed out on the moisture. Luckily, this was not the case in western Texas where areas between Lamesa and Lubbock finally received 0.5-1.5” of rain. Lubbock’s 0.77” of rain on Mar. 27 exceeded their Oct. 7-Mar. 26 total of 0.40”. Amarillo’s 0.24” on Mar. 27 was even more than their Oct. 7-Mar. 26 amount of 0.07”. Take away an extremely wet early October (2.14” from Oct. 3-6) and Amarillo’s conditions would have been even worse.

From south-central Texas northeastward into western Louisiana, a swath of 3-8” of rain provided 1-2 categories of drought improvement, while more scattered bands of moderate to heavy rain allowed limited 1-category improvement in parts of southern and central Texas. The aforementioned rains in west Texas were responsible for a D3 to D2 upgrade as most tools responded. Some slight westward adjustments (improvements) of the D0 edge in north-central Texas and central Oklahoma were made as the cutoff between decent and scanty rains occurred.

Unfortunately, another week with little or no precipitation in northern Texas, western half of Oklahoma, and Kansas led to additional deterioration as D4 spread into parts of the Oklahoma and northern Texas Panhandles as gusty winds produced sand storms in the area.

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West

After a very wet March and prior week in California, tranquil weather (mild and dry) enveloped the state and much of the West, with only light precipitation falling on western Washington and Oregon, northern Idaho, most of Montana, northern and eastern Wyoming, and northern Colorado. Fortunately for California, March provided several welcome slugs of moisture to the Sierra Nevada snow pack after one of the driest Februarys on record, bumping April 1 statewide SWE readings to 52% of normal, up from 23% on March 1, but still below the average. Major state reservoirs were at or above normal April 1 averages largely due to last winter’s bountiful precipitation. In Oregon, last week’s precipitation was also enough to keep status-quo during this week’s dry weather, although April 1 NRCS average basin numbers were still below normal (75-87% precipitation, 44-64% SWE). WYTD precipitation and SWE statistics are better toward the north and east, with northern Oregon, Washington, most of Idaho, northeastern Nevada, Montana, and Wyoming at or above normal.

Unfortunately, the trend of the Southwest missing significant precipitation during the winter has extended into the spring, with NRCS average basin (especially the Four Corners region states) precipitation and SWE running at 20-70% and 0-60% of normal, respectively. With most WYTD tools depicting D2-D4 conditions, along with reported impacts, some deterioration was made in northwest Arizona (D2 expansion in Mohave County); north-central Utah (D2 into Salt Lake County, D3 increase in Utah County); southern Colorado (D2 in Pueblo County, D3 into eastern Las Animas, eastern Otero, and western Bent Counties); and a slight southward extension of D3 into west-central and east-central New Mexico. As the spring season continues, temperatures will rise and precipitation normally decreases, so the short-term outlook is not favorable for any improvement based strictly on climatology.

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http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

[KPN]

1. Dustbowl 2018.