Update - June 28, 2020

As discussed in the posting on the 19th (click here), I mentioned that for a couple of months I had concerns about the expanding drought and still did on the 19th, despite a respite of generally wetter weather expected.  As of this posting, my concerns have deepened.  At the moment, I think we're headed for an extended and expanding drought.    The respite in the dry weather pattern was generally brief but at least for most areas there was significant rainfall, but there was also very severe wind and hail - and actually excessive rainfall.  But despite the favorable pattern that brought the increased in rainfall, there were still quite a few locations that did not receive ANY rainfall!  That is concerning!

Here is what fell during the past 7 days....



Although the drought monitor presented below does not take into account all the rainfall (not including the large Mescoscale Convective Systems (MCS) on Friday and Saturday (26th and 27th)), there really wasn't much improvement in conditions except for those lucky ones.  Here was the drought map for the 26th...



What has got to be a big eye operner is how the dryness and drought conditions have been expanding.  The western Cornbelt is seeing conditions deteriorate significantly.  Even other parts of the Cornbelt are now seeing abnormally dry conditions.

For this week the pattern is back to the hot (and very hot), windy and dry weather for most of the region.  This has been expected.  In the previous post I said "Going into July, I think there may be a couple of good chances for thunderstorms but I'm afraid those chances may not be enough to alleviate the drought."

The first chance is a small one and that will be toward the end of this week - maybe late Thursday/Friday?  But at this point it's too early to say if it will be a large MCS or just scattered storms (for the high plains).  The most likely period for thunderstorms (at least several chances) will be between July 6-14.  We better hope that period pans out otherwise going into late July and early August we will probably be looking at a D4 (Exceptional Drought).

To add insult to injury, here is the official U.S. Drought Outlook through the end of September....



I'll try and update toward the end of the week.