Area residents collected between 1 and 2.25 inches Sunday night into Monday, but that wasn’t enough to put a dent in our current drought.
The KVOE listening area west of US Highway 75 is still in severe drought.
Areas east of the highway are in moderate drought.
The rainfall did cut down Emporia’s precipitation deficit for the calendar year from around 3 inches to around an inch.
Drought is not just a Kansas problem.
The US Drought Monitor says drought now affects 36 percent of the country, up from 32 percent a week ago.
The most significant drought extends from southwest Kansas south to Texas and west to Arizona, and there is a pocket of exceptional drought — the worst on the Drought Monitor scale — straddles the Kansas-Oklahoma line southwest of Wichita.
The area’s weather pattern, which has been largely stable since late October, is becoming unsettled over the next week.
Shower and storm chances are in the picture Friday and again Sunday through Tuesday.

This has had a knock-on effect on rural employment, with the loss of about 30 000 seasonal farm worker jobs during the harvest season, University of Cape Town (UCT) Professor Mark New has said.
Fruit and wine farmers usually replaced their orchards and vineyards in cycles, when the plants reached the end of their lifespans after 15 to 20 years.
But once national government had cut off the water supply to farmers, when they had reached the limit of their drought allocation in late February, many of the deciduous fruit and wine farmers stopped irrigating those orchards and vineyards which were due to be replaced in the next five to six years.
De Lille ‘really changed momentum’ Demand had increased and the Department of Water and Sanitation, responsible for bulk water supplies, had been incredibly reluctant to bring on additional water supplies in the Western Cape.
In addition, the City of Cape Town’s water managers had been rather complacent during 2017 and had thought the city would not get a third dry year.
The narrative around the drought had changed last year when Mayor Patricia de Lille had decided to take action by setting up a drought crisis committee.
New said that water managers now should be thinking that there is an almost equal chance of another dry year this rainy season.
Water managers would get an indication by the end of April if this winter was going to be dry or wet.
“If rainfall in April is above average, there is a high probability the whole year will be above average.
If low, there is a high probability that that pattern will persist to the end of the year.” This meant water managers would have an early warning system by the end of April, and certainly by the end of June, which would mean they could institute water demand management processes based on evidence, rather than wait until the end of the rainy season to take stock.—News24

While presidents, royalty and corporate dignitaries gave speeches at a global conference in Brasil’s federal capital this week on the need to protect water sources, river defender Ageu Lobo Pereira was running for his life through the Amazon forest.
The subject has received little attention at this week’s World Water Forum, the pre-eminent global talking shop for management of sanitation, drinking supplies, hydropower, irrigation, watershed management and a host of other related issues.
Yet in Brazil, the world’s most water-rich country, hundreds of cities face drought and many more communities are afflicted by contamination of supplies, while those that try to defend these resources are often murdered or criminalised.
Nineteen people died in that accident – Brazil’s worst environmental disaster – but many more are still suffering because the river is contaminated.
From the Tapajós, Francisco Firmino described his own narrow escape from hitmen hired by the same boss who targeted the village chief, Pereira.
“We have been fighting for water, for the forest and for our grandchildren for many years,” he said.
“But things have got worse because even the states seems to be against us.” His life, he said, was saved not by police but by allies from the Munduruku indigenous group, which is campaigning against dams, mines and a series of soya ports, which would add to the river traffic and pollution.
Although such cases are primarily aired outside the conference halls, the World Water Forum has for the first time invited judges and prosecutors to underscore the importance of rule of law in conservation and sustainable use of water.
“If actions are taken sooner rather than later and decision-makers invest in water security, our water resources can be managed more effectively, and communities will be better protected from crises,” explains World Water Council president, Benedito Braga.
The forum highlights how water security is rising up the political agenda, with more groups involved, a wider set of solutions discussed and a greater sense of urgency.

This story is part of our series Water at Risk, which looks at some of the risks to the water supply facing parts of Canada, South Africa and the Middle East.
As conservationists and organizations around the globe mark World Water Day Thursday, some scientists are warning that Canada is not immune to water shortages and periods of drought.
These are the parts of the country most at risk: Prairie provinces All three Prairie provinces, stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the shore of Hudson Bay, are vulnerable to drought, says David Price, a scientist for Natural Resources Canada who models climate change outlooks.
A little of the moisture makes it over the mountains, but as summer temperatures rise, the risk of drought across Alberta, Saskatchewan and even Manitoba will grow, he said.
Climate change could mean even hotter summers in the region, making it more vulnerable to drought.
British Columbia has been dependent on snowpack to provide moisture through the spring and summer, but it may get more rain in winter, which would run off the land rather than melting slowly as snow does, Bonsal said.
is accustomed to seeing lots of rain, but with places like the lower Fraser region and Vancouver Island seeing less of it, they’ll have to rely more and more on water reservoirs, according to Pomeroy.
In fact, the shortage has prompted water restrictions in the province and instances of hydrological drought, which is when lakes, rivers and ground water supplies are depleted.
He predicts not much change in Yukon and N.W.T.
Climate change models vary in their predictions of whether water levels in the Great Lakes will rise or fall as weather patterns change.

Experts have warned that if dams are not built and ground water recharged, the province will turn into a desert.
A half century ago, water could be seen flowing in the streams and coasts of the province.
However, the situation is very different now.
The government installed a large number of tube wells but did not build any dams nor take action against illegal drilling.
In addition to this, drought and an increase in population have exacerbated the problem of water scarcity.
Drought coupled with a drop of 2,000 feet in sea level has destroyed agricultural lands across the province.
Meanwhile, residents of Quetta and Gwadar do not even have water to drink.
Experts have issued warning bells that due to a drop in seawater level, the land on which Quetta lies is sinking in by 10 centimetres.
According to the Quetta Water and Sanitation Authority (QWASA), the city has a daily demand of 50 million gallons of water.
Stating that work on the dam will be completed in two years, the official added, “Mangi Dam will provide Quetta with 80 million gallons of water daily and should help solve the water crisis in the area for a short period of time.” Further, experts claim that there’s not enough water in the province for the next generations.

STUDIO CITY (CBSLA) — The storms that this week caused authorities to issue evacuation alerts for nearly 30,000 residents in the Southland might seem severe enough to make a dent in the state’s ongoing drought, but a flowing L.A. River belies an uglier truth.
What some have dubbed a “March Miracle” will likely do little to get us out of the crisis.
The Weather Channel said this week 488 cm of snow had fallen in the Sierra Nevada in 18 days, adding it was nearly double that since late February, but below the mid-March average.
That snowpack feeds the rest of the state throughout the year.
Talking to the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said, “I would call it a very helpful March.
[…] It has brought us up from the bottom of the barrel in a lot of places, but it is not close.” He added this week’s storm “may not actually increase the snowpack at all.” Last January was the wettest month observed in 112 years of record, according to the San Joaquin precipitation index.
Those rains temporarily pulled the state out of the drought.
The percentage of the state that was in extreme drought went from a high of 60 to 2 percent that month.
Those gains were lost thanks to very hot and dry latter part of the year.
The editorial board of the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday published an op-ed called “Atmospheric river or not, California must be ready for the next drought,” which warned that municipal and state leaders need to ramp up their conservation efforts to get through this drought or the next.

( Farm Journal ) (Bloomberg) — It was already looking bad for Argentina’s drought-stricken farmers.
Unrelenting dryness has parched fields across the Pampas, the nation’s main growing region.
His late-planted soy is in bad shape.
The pod, like many others in the baked field, had just two seeds.
Most beans, known as the early crop, are planted in October and November.
Those late beans are currently going through the critical yield-defining growth phase in brutally dry conditions, raising speculation that production estimates will continue to fall.
Things have gotten so bad that some farmers who have cattle won’t even bother to harvest.
About 2,000 hectares of his crop are late-sown.
Yield expectations on those late beans have fallen to 2 tons a hectare (30 bushels an acre) from 3.6 at planting, he said.
That would be just 20 percent less than last year, he said.

‘Witching Hour’ warnings for the Southwest issued as drought spreads, fire risk warnings rise Standing at the doorstep of the early spring season, the National Weather Service (NWS) and climate prediction forecasters attending a national briefing in Albuquerque last week warned local government officials and farmers of developing drought conditions across the Southwest, the High Plains, and growing areas in the Midwest.
During that briefing climatologists warned that exceptionally dry conditions and high winds over the winter months have resulted in dry livestock tanks, decimated wheat crops, and thousands of charred acres stretching from Kansas to Texas and west to Arizona as wildfires ramped up in recent weeks.
Texas State Climatologist John Nielson-Gammon warned forecasters, government and industry officials who attended the briefing that some areas across the region have received little or no rain over the last five months, creating what he called the longest stretch of dry weather in decades for many locations.
Nielson-Gammon warned that a shortage of rain and above-average temperatures has helped to spread drought conditions in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado, where wildfires have already become a serious issue.
18, the USDA Forest Service, who maps current wildfires across the nation, reported no less than 41 wildfire outbreaks were active in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado.
Nearly 20,000 acres have burned across the Texas Panhandle in the last week while Oklahoma may be suffering the worst of dry conditions and outbreak of wildfires according to wire reports issued over the weekend.
A Forestry Service official reported (Sunday) that fire crews and equipment are in enroute from Alabama, Kentucky and Louisiana to help contain the fires, which are spreading as a result of low moisture and fanned by high winds.
NWS officials issued fire warnings last week for most of Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, southern Kansas, northeastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado and southeastern Missouri.
The photos revealed smoke plumes moving across the Southwest and noted in some areas the consecutive days without rain is the worst or record and warned conditions are expected to worsen in the weeks and months ahead.
Related

In next week’s issue we will have much more about these items.
In the meantime, we encourage you to check out the Journal’s website, www.hpj.com each day, for breaking news.
Kansas Gov.
Jeff Colyer signs drought declaration At a press conference on March 13, Colyer signed a drought declaration for all 105 counties in Kansas, to provide assistance to farmers and ranchers impacted by drought.
The action “…activates the disaster response efforts at the state level and provides authority for the deployment and use of personnel, supplies, equipment, materials or facilities available to aid the drought response.
Importantly, this declaration will temporarily suspend certain motor carrier rules and regulations in order to expedite efforts to transport hay to livestock in drought-stricken areas.” Colyer issued letters to David Schemm, Kansas State executive director of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, and all county executive directors, to urge them to act quickly on requests to permit the use of CRP ground for haying and grazing.” In Kansas, 57 counties are considered to be in D2 (severe) or D3 (extreme) drought levels, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
It can be found at www.droughtmonitor.unl.edu.
A fix for Section 199A tax provisions In January, we learned that an unintended consequence of Section 199A of President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was that members of farmer-owned cooperatives received a favorable tax ruling on the sale of commodities to their cooperatives.
The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation developed a fix to the 199A provision, which, if approved by Congress, will be part of a larger omnibus bill later this month.
Filed in September 2016, the lawsuit claimed farmers lost revenue due to Syngenta’s genetically modified Viptera being made available to U.S. farmers before it was approved for export.

The Western Cape region has gone without significant rains for more than three years, forcing South Africa’s second city to slash residential water consumption by more than 60 percent.
Wine flavours may benefit, but water-intensive businesses like Marlize’s farm, 35 kilometres (20 miles) east of Cape Town, have borne the brunt of the water crisis.
"Water costs have increased by about 100 percent.
We’re absolutely only giving water to keep the vines alive—not any more than that."
So perilous is Cape Town’s economic situation that credit rating agency Moody’s warned in January that if the crisis worsens, it could lead to the city losing its investment-grade status.
The ‘Day Zero’ threat The city was granted a narrow escape earlier this month when the dreaded "Day Zero"—the date when taps will run dry—was finally pushed back until next year after months of growing public panic.
If Day Zero does arrive, individuals will be forced to queue at public standpipes to collect daily 25 litre (6.6 US gallons) rations.
The famed winelands, responsible for 11 percent of the region’s economic output, also bring millions of visitors to the region annually and the Western Cape tourism sector alone sustains 300,000 jobs.
In 2016, 94 percent of the region’s companies flagged water as a risk to their operations.
The beer giant, owned by AB InBev, declined to comment on the drought’s effect on beer production, but others in the drinks industry told AFP that if "Day Zero" happened, it would be catastrophic.