It will be a struggle

Several months ago I gave the outlook through June with drier than expected for May, with just a glimmer of hope, and drier than average for June.  The glimmer of hope has come and gone several times.  Just about the time I think that we'll get lucky with precipitation, a monkey wrench will be thrown into the equation.  The last system did bring some widespread precipitation, but unfortunately most locations did not get that much.  Some got more than had fallen for months.  Here is a look at the rainfall that fell across the region....

Going back 14 days - it's pretty dismal, at least for May

The lack of widespread rainfall and decent amounts combined with very warm to hot days with a lot of wind has manifested into the serious drought.  Here is the latest Palmer Drought Severity Index map...

That brings us to another "glimmer of hope".  Looking at the upper air chart from this morning....

The upper low across Idaho was dropping southeast and was unseasonably strong combined with the upper trough extending into southern Canada.  That has set the stage for the late spring snowstorm across the Rockies.  For the high plains, there may be some rain and snow across the higher elevations  (mainly into northeast Colorado).  Otherwise, just colder air.

The hope for the most of us is that system out in the north Pacific (see the map above).  Wow that has a LONG way to go to get set up to produce much for the high plains, in the terms of precipitation.  Long range computer forecast models have been robust.  I'm so hesitant to expect much.  However, it is now getting into the latter days of May and Gulf of Mexico moisture has become more accessible for storm systems.  Here is the outlook through Wednesday from a combination of NWS forecasts and various computer models.  Fingers crossed....

But, then beyond mid-week, it looks dismal again.  What the atmosphere will be fighting is a very warm Elevated Mixed Layer (EML) or capping with warm air aloft.  I'm afraid going forward that it will have to be a case of good luck to get mesoscale processes lined up to produce opportunities for rainfall. 

Not that La Nina is producing this drought/dryness (it is definately contributing to it), but the news might even be worse going through all of summer.  It appears that we may be headed towards a "triple dip" La Nina (3 in a row) and the only two times I could find this happening was 1973-1976 and 1998-2001.  Both summers of that third year were very dry.  I'm not optimistic.

After this upcoming opportunity for rainfall, I'll update again with perhaps more detail for the Summer.