Emerging Issue: Another heat wave and short-term dryness

The Furnace

The past few days have given us all a very welcome break from the heat across the entire state. Alas, the break is not going to last. Mother Nature is keen to turn the furnace on late this week and will keep it on a high heat setting through at least next Tuesday, possibly the entire week of Labor Day. The whole state is going to participate in the heat but the far western part of the state should avoid the worst of it. Across central and eastern Nebraska, expect maximum temperatures to cross the 90F threshold on either Thursday or Friday and remain well above 90F past Labor Day. Temperatures will likely hit 100F for 4-5 consecutive days along the Kansas border between McCook and Beatrice. I am fairly confident most of the eastern half Nebraska will get the whole hundred at some point this coming weekend and possibly for the entire weekend, if mixing is sufficient. Minimum temperatures will also be staying above the low 70's for much of this stretch across most of eastern NE, especially in urban areas.

If there is a silver lining, it appears the ridge gracing us with its presence should just be seasonally strong instead of historically strong. That should keep temperatures from soaring over record levels for days on end and dewpoints should be lower than the first half of last week. Nevertheless, dewpoints could absolutely be 70-75 in parts of eastern NE where crops are still healthy and transpiring. We will likely be looking at heat advisory across the eastern 2/3 of the state and possibly excessive heat warning criteria for southeastern NE starting Friday or Saturday. The danger to livestock should be under the extreme danger category with this round of heat but definitely will be flirting with the extreme category for several days.

Weekend rainfall update

Many locations in the southern third of Nebraska picked up welcome rain from a mesoscale convective vortex (MCV) Friday night and Saturday morning. 1.0-1.5" totals were widespread in the southern Panhandle and in south central and southeast Nebraska between I-80 and the Kansas border. There were also pockets of widespread 2-4" in Adams, Cass, Clay, Franklin, Jefferson, Kearney, Lancaster, Nuckolls, Saline, Thayer, and Webster counties. A quick look at soil moisture from the Nebraska Mesonet shows that there was significant moisture added in the top foot of the profile in places that picked up more than 1.5" Some parts of central and eastern Nebraska picked up a quick thunderstorm on Friday afternoon with the frontal passage. But most of north central and the northeastern quadrant of Nebraska missed out on rain and have not had meaningful rain in the last two weeks.

Short term dryness

Unfortunately the only reasonable chance of rain in the next 10 days (as it appears now) is today. So a lot of the northern half of the state could be going on its fourth straight week with no meaningful precipitation as we get to the end of next week. This is essentially undoing some or much of the drought progress that was made in July and early August. I recommend irrigated farmers north of I-80 that have been very dry the last 14 days contine do some scouting in the next few days to determine crop stage and plan irrigation treatments accordingly. Corn can still use a lot of water in the dent stage under high heat conditions.