1. ND Weekly Drought Update
Adnan Akyuz, Ph.D.
NDSU, AES
State Climatologist
Updated 5/31/2018

2. Divisional Precipitation Anomalies and Rankings
March 2018
April 2018
-0.85”
16th
-1.1”
2nd
-1.07”
7th
-0.69”
29th
-1.06”
8th
-1.34”
6th
-0.2”
58th
-0.64”
35th
-1.18”
14th
Negative numbers indicate drier than long-term ( ) average.
Lower rankings indicate historically drier conditions on record (124 years total).

3. Divisional Temperature Anomalies and Rankings
March 2018
April 2018
-8.7F
5th
-8.5F
5th
-8.9F
7th
-7.7F
7th
-9.1F
3rd
-9.4F
3rd
--6.5F
7th
-8.3F
3rd
-9.9F
2nd
Negative numbers indicate cooler than long-term ( ) average.
Lower rankings indicate historically cooler conditions on record (124 years total).

4. 30-Day Precipitation
Total Accumulation
% of Normal
(NDAWN Images)

5. Long Term Precipitation % of Normal
60 Days
90 Days
(HPRCC Images)

6. Weekly Drought Impact Collection Based on the NDSU Weekly Survey of Extension Offices
1: North-West
Ward County: Moderately Dry. Spotty germination, dry, powdery top soil, crops are stressed, grass growth has slowed, lawns and pastures drying up. Stock ponds that filled with the snow melt are quickly dropping.
Mountrail County: Severely Dry. Many areas received less than .10 inches of rain so far. Many producers seeding into powder dry dirt. Pastures are slow to start and turning because of lack of moisture. Large amount of acreage being planted to forages. Tame grasses are month behind and hampering turnout. Early turnout strategies forage options. Fall grazing options. Need for possible water shortage. Grazing tame grasses hard! Some grazing early on alfalfa grass and possible fall grazing options.
Divide County: Severely Dry. The county has received no significant rains for April and May and there is little subsoil moisture due to last year’s drought.
2: North-Central
McHenry County: Mildly Dry. While we received about 2-3 inches throughout the county the farm ground is already being farmed again and pastures can still use more moisture to recover from last year. Still very dry after getting some rain in the northern part of the county, but no rain in the south. Pastures are very short. Not enough grass, producers are thinning out their herds because of the lack of grazing available. DEEP Culling. In pastures the grass crunches as you walk through it and there isn't much growing.
Bottineau County: Mildly Dry. We received rains in parts of the county but are flirting with the Mildly Dry to Moderately Dry in other areas. Producers are delaying pasture turnout to help give relief to pastures that were heavily grazed in the fall to hopefully produce decent grass, reserves of hay are becoming depleted and will likely have to turn cattle out or buy hay. Delayed grazing, selecting drought tolerant crops.
3: North-East
Cavalier County: Near Normal.
Grand Forks County: Northern part of county is near normal to mildly dry. Southern part of county is wet to near normal. Delaying of planting due to wet spots.
Towner County: Mildly Dry
Walsh County: Near Normal.
4: West
McKenzie County: Mildly Dry. McKenzie Moderately Dry My pastures and hay fields have no subsoil moisture. We have had very little spring rain and the forages are starting to go backwards. We will be short on grass but very short on hay. Keeping only the top end of the herd.
Mercer County: Severely Dry. According to my unofficial record Mercer County only has received anywhere from .13 to .33 inches of rainfall the last 30 days. Pastures and crops are starting to show drought stress planted wheat fields are coming up very spotty. Hill tops are poorly emerged. Still holding from snow runoff but rivers and creeks are very low for this time of year, in some cases they have stop flowing already. Many are not talking about it, because they know the options in 30 days if rainfall doesn't come. Talk about delaying cattle turned out but many have no other options they are out of hay. people are trying to hold out hope and hoping it rains at least an inch in the next 15 days if alternative options will need to take place. Rains have been very spotty go 50 miles from Mercer County and they have received good amounts of rainfall.
Oliver County: Moderately Dry. Most of the county remained dry this week. There was a small cell that added up to over 3 inches and 5 miles away no rain at all. Pastures have not responded to the warm weather. Stress from overgrazing last year have really set the pasture back. They are green from a shower last week, but little growth. Most areas had snow runoff to fill the dugouts. Pastures are extremely slow as a result of over grazing in 2017 and lack of moisture in Some producers are talking about drylotting an extra 6 weeks. Attitudes of farmers and ranchers are more depressed this year than last because of the lack of hay reserves and not having any old growth in the pastures.
Dunn County: Mildly Dry. Rain conditions have happened but spotty and varying in intensity.

7. Weekly Drought Impact Collection Based on the NDSU Weekly Survey of Extension Offices
5: Central
Kidder County: Mildly Dry.
Foster County: Near Normal.
6: East-Central
Griggs County: Near Normal
7: South-West
Golden Valley County: Mildly Dry
Slope County: Mildly Dry.
Adams County. Moderately Dry . We are in that Mildly Dry to Moderately Dry. It is very spotty in the county. At the beginning of the week we had parts of the county see inches of rain in an hour. I heard even higher report of closer to 7 inches. It came fast and hard. We saw areas get pea size hail too. Very spotty rains. Some can get inches then 8-10 miles away almost nothing. This last week the rains were spotty across the whole county. We don’t have the sub-moisture because we were dry last year. What has help us was the late wet snow that came and nice shower. The top soil is getting hard and drying out because of heat and winds.
8: South-Central
Emmons County: Mildly Dry. Emmons County has received rain! On May 17 and 18, parts of the county received anywhere from 1.70 to 2.50 inches of rain. There was some hail that came with the rain but everyone was happy to have the moisture. This week, the northern part of the county got a little shower of rain again but that didn't amount to much. The pastures have greened up but are not really growing. Cereal crops are coming out of the ground but could use another shot of rain. Some of the winter cereals are not doing very good. They came up but are extremely thin and short, I would think due to lack of moisture last fall. Everyone's mood has improved since the rain last week but we are still in need of rain this spring. With the warm temperatures, the rain we received is decreasing and we are in need of more. If we don't receive any rain in the near future, we will start going backwards again and doing so extremely fast. The growth of the grass is extremely slow. It doesn't seem to be growing even though we received some moisture. I think it was so dry last year that the pastures are still trying to recuperate and we are behind on growing conditions and growing degree days so that doesn't help. We need to continue receiving timely rains/moisture and have good growing conditions for the pastures to come back. The recent rain help replenish the water supply in the livestock dugout.
9: South-East
LaMoure County: While the county received a needed soaking that still doesn't compensate for the deficit from the previous growing season. I believe the rain helped but the grasses seem to be shorter than this time last year.
Richland County: Mildly Dry.
Logan County: Near Normal.

8. (% Change from previous week)
Cumulative % area
(% Change from previous week)
None
19%
(0%) D2
14%
(+7%) D1
53%
(+6%) DO
81%
(0%)

9. State Coverage and Intensity

10. Drought Change
One-week Change
4-week Change

11. Drought Severity and Coverage Index (Statewide)
329
(Aug 8, 2006)
295
(Aug 8, 2017)
148
(+13)
Drought Severity and Coverage Index = ADO + 2AD1 + 3AD2 + 4AD3 + 5AD4 (Akyüz, 2007)
Where: A is a % of the state covered under the corresponding D-severity

12. Accumulated Drought Severity and Coverage Index (Statewide)
9351
(+148)
9,530
10,642
9653
19,319
2116
1714
*Numbers indicate the area under the DSCI Index Curve
*Akyuz (2017)

13. Soil Moisture and Bare Soil Temperature
Soil Moisture Departure from Normal
5-week Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI)
(40mm = 1.6”)

14. 7-day GFS Forecast* Thu 1am, May31 through Thu 1am, June7
*College of DuPage
Next Generation Weather Lab (Displayed with permission)

15. 14-day GFS Forecast* Thu 1am, May31 through Thu 1am, June14
*College of DuPage
Next Generation Weather Lab (Displayed with permission)

16. Medium Range Forecast
Week 3-4 Precipitation
Week 3-4 Temperature

17. 3-Mounth Outlook: June-August
Precipitation
Temperature