Released: March 18, 2005

U.S. Climate Prediction Center Lowers Kansas’ Rain Outlook

MANHATTAN, Kan. – The U.S. Climate Prediction Center painted a less rosy picture for Kansas with its March 17 outlooks. In February, the CPC called for above-normal moisture through spring. Now, it’s saying Kansas has equal odds for having above- or below-normal precipitation.

“The week ending on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) may have been a harbinger of what’s to come,” said Mary Knapp, State of Kansas climatologist. “Our first expectation for rain that week went to the south, landing on the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma and leaving Kansas high and dry. Then the rain in our weekend forecast went to the north over North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.”

The real problem in both types of just-miss pattern is that March typically is the transition month that takes Kansas into its annual rainy season, said Knapp, who heads the Kansas Weather Data Library, housed with Kansas State University Research and Extension.

“Most of the state is still above normal for the year because of January’s and February’s precipitation,” she added. “But if we don’t get a wet season soon, we could be back into drought very quickly. The surface moisture from winter’s snows will evaporate rapidly. The subsurface moisture supplies across most of Kansas still aren’t fully recharged – recovered – from our last drought.”

The climate center’s March 17 drought outlook called for worsening conditions in the inner-mountain West from Washington state on east to Montana and Wyoming. The CPC’s updated moisture and temperature outlook for April-June predicted above-normal precipitation for the desert Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle) and for the upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and northern Missouri).

“It left Kansas surrounded by states with better potential for rain,” Knapp said.

When the CPC forecasts 50-50 odds for more or less rain than usual, that usually means the center has no data on which to base a truly reliable forecast, she said.

“The signals the CPC forecasters saw in February haven’t persisted. For one thing, the forecasters aren’t getting any strong clues from the current El Niño – signals that would enable them to have confidence in a more specific outlook. This El Niño is very weak and fading,” Knapp said. “In fact, there’s no real explanation other than circulation patterns for why we haven’t received the rains recently predicted in Kansas’ short-term, local forecasts.

“The near-term outlook isn’t offering much hope, either. Rather than getting the two weeks that our gardeners and farmers could use outdoors, we may see a month of dry weather that begins to stress newly planted gardens – not to mention this year’s wheat crop.”

During March 11-17, despite two chances for significant rainfall, northwest and southwest Kansas received an average 0.03 inch of moisture and the southeast got just 0.01 inch.

“That’s less than we’d normally expect on a daily basis in March, much less on a weekly basis,” Knapp said. “The rest of the state basically stayed dry.”

The situation doesn’t necessarily mean gloom and doom, however.

“It’s disappointing,” the climatologist said. “But we had a dry March last year, too, and the rest of the growing season was very wet. We’ll just have to hope our 50-50 odds go that way again this year.”

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Kathleen Ward
kward@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News