Did last weekend’s rains help Kansas City’s drought conditions? See the latest maps
It’s been a dry spring in Kansas City and last weekend’s rain showers did little, if anything, to change that, according to the latest drought maps released this week.
Meaningful rainfall has been hard to come by over the past 90 days across the region. So much so, Kansas City is running a rain deficit of 3.07 inches when compared to what is considered normal precipitation over that period, according to the National Weather Service in Kansas City.
This is troublesome because this is typically the rainiest part of the year in Kansas City.
Other cities in the area are faring much worse: Olathe is missing 4.72 inches of rain, St. Joseph has a deficit of 5.39 inches and Sedalia is missing 5.22 inches. Kirksville is running a deficit of 6.5 inches and Chillicothe is missing 8.58 inches.
“We are behind in rainfall across the entire state of Missouri and much of Kansas,” said the National Weather Service on Twitter.
Just over 88% of the of the National Weather Service’s Kansas City forecast area, which covers much of northern and western Missouri and extreme northeast Kansas, is facing abnormally dry or worse drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. That is unchanged from last week.
Overall, a little over 74% of the Kansas City forecast area is experiencing moderate or worse drought conditions, which is unchanged from last week.
Meanwhile, nearly 34% of the forecast area is seeing severe or worse drought conditions, up from about nearly 29% last week. The percentage of areas experiencing extreme or worse drought conditions was 8.75%, down from 10.34% a week ago.
The Drought Severity and Coverage Index, which converts drought levels to a single value for an area, is 205 for the Kansas City forecast area, up slightly from 202 last week.
The index ranges from 0 to 500, with 0 meaning none of the area is abnormally dry or in a drought and 500 meaning all of the area is facing exceptional drought conditions.
