Despite hot temps in the forecast, not much drought in the state.
But climatologists meeting on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus are cautiously optimistic that drought generally won’t be a problem for the state this summer.
Drought is loosely defined as a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time — usually a season or more — resulting in a water shortage for some activity, group, or environmental sector.
Drought developed rapidly in the region’s northern Plains over the past one to two months with almost 30 percent of North Dakota in extreme drought.
But even that is expected to show improvements by the end of September, Fuchs said.
While Nebraskans were fairly irritated by all the smoke their southern neighbors sent their way in the spring, they can be grateful this summer for Kansas being pretty much drought-free and sending the gulf air on up without drying it out.
But they’re watching the next few weeks of hot and dry weather, he said, for how it could affect the state.
For the 2017 calendar year, the majority of the state is shown as normal, with pockets of dryness from the Panhandle to the southwest, and then in the north-central and northeast.
"We’re really about one or two good rains in most of the state from being normal to above normal for the calendar year," he said.
On water supply, Fuchs said Lake McConaughy is at about 85 percent of capacity, about what it was in November, with seasonal demands for irrigation increasing.