Drought conditions in Missouri have slightly intensified over the past week, according to the latest data from the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
More than a third of the state is in D4, or exceptional drought, the worst category. That area covers the Boot-heal and a swath of western Missouri from Kansas City down to around Springfield. The rest of the Show-Me State is in extreme drought (D3), the second-worst category. NDMC Climatologist Mark Svoboda says Missouri can expect a brief reprieve next week.
“There’s a system, a cold front, coming through," Svoboda said. "It does look like the prospects for some pretty decent precipitation could occur; particularly the northern half of Missouri and even down into west central Missouri could see several inches of rain, hopefully in the next five days.”
Svoboda says, though, that drought conditions will return after that.
"It looks like the September forecast for Missouri, virtually the entire state, looks like increased odds of being both above normal temperature-wise as well as below normal precipitation-wise," Svoboda said. "That’s not a good combination.”
But there is some long-range good news: Svoboda says the southern plains and Gulf States are expected to have a colder and wetter-than-normal winter, and that could eventually help relieve drought conditions in Missouri.
