Update - 08/14/17

Catching my breath, I can at least briefly post. 

The North American Monsoon (partly responsible for the high plains wetness) has abated, at least temporarily.  More on that below.  First...

Over the past 14 days, there have been incredible amounts of rainfall (August standards) for many locations across the high plains.  BUT, there continues to be those unfortunate ones that keep missing out.  One area is from near Dodge City to Concordia.  You can see that during the past 14 days, there are those heavy rainfall amounts but also the areas that have missed out.  Click on the map for a large (very large) image:

Unfortunately, there has also been a rash of very severe thunderstorms.  The hail and wind across the I-70 corridor on Thursday and also across Barber county on Wednesday was particularity bad.  Supercells (that produced the severe weather) of this magnitude are not unheard of for early August, but relatively rare.

Because of those that have missed out, moderate drought conditions have developed across the central third of Kansas and down into Oklahoma.  The western corn belt and into much of Iowa is getting progressively drier too, although there were some big rains over the weekend at some locations. Here is the latest drought monitor (as of August 8)

Looking at the latest satellite image...

 
Most notably was an anomalously strong upper level system across the western U.S..  The jet stream associated with this system was dipping pretty sharply south!  As this system moves out int the plains later in the week, there should be another a pretty big warmup for the northern plains followed by a cool down.  For the high plains, the result will be a boundary that will be part of the equation that will bring additional chances for thunderstorms.  This time it looks like areas farther east will be targeted, hopefully helping a bit with the moderate drought area.  Here is the latest thinking from the Weather Prediction Center....

I'm not sure if the NA Monsoon will return as strong as it has been during the summer, but it may not matter too much since the grounds are relatively wet and green across much of the high plains.  We'll see, but I would suspect that things will start drying out as September approaches.  You might know what that means.  Just like last year, take advantage of early top moisture for fall planting (for those that have benefited this summer anyway).

I've heard lately from a "lot" of people that because it's been wet and considerably cooler than normal during the past 3 weeks that we're going to have an early fall.  I'm taking that an early freeze would be expected - at least that's what they are saying. 

However, summer weather patterns usually have very little to do with the weather during the following fall (and especially into the winter).  Having said that, I did a really quick glance (since 1875) of late summers (late July into mid August) that were wet and "cold" at Dodge City and found that a very high percentage of those years actually had normal to late first freezes.  I'll do a little more digging into the past data and post here, maybe by Thursday (17th).