Drought Monitor changes
After a relatively quiet month with minimal change to the U.S. Drought Monitor in Nebraska, last week saw pockets of degradation across the southern Panhandle and southwest Nebraska. In the Panhandle, there was expansion of severe drought (D2) into more of Morrill and Garden counties and parts of Cheyenne counties. In southwestern Nebraska, there was expansion of D0 into more of Perkins, Chase, and Dundy counties, D1 into more of Keith and Lincoln counties and D1 from western Buffalo into Frontier counties.
Figure 1. USDM changes last week
With the exception of far southeast Nebraska, it has been a dry to start to the year for most of the state. A quick look at precipitation rankings for the common period of January 1st through February 16th shows that many districts are top 25 driest year to date. This signal is also present over much of the Corn Belt and Northern Plains.
Soil moisture
Most of the state is covered by snow at the moment and the ground is frozen. But regardless, most of the state and the broader North Central U.S. has lower than average soil moisture. This will need to get corrected this spring if we're going to have a reserve of moisture for the crops going into the summer.
Figure 3. Soil moisture percentiles from NASA's SPoRT LIS
