Drought Monitor: Arkansas Posts 8-16 Inch Deficits as Four Corners Soaks

Rainfall of 4 to 8 inches near the Colorado–New Mexico border drove two-category drought improvements across southern Colorado this week, while most of the eastern half of the contiguous United States stayed dry and drought deepened from Arkansas to the lower Mid-Atlantic.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor — produced jointly by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the USDA and NOAA — maps a country splitting in two directions. The West and High Plains are soaking; the South and Midwest east of Oklahoma are drying out.

Where did the rain fall?

Moderate to heavy precipitation stretched from the northern Great Plains to the southern High Plains and westward to the Pacific Coast. Amounts of at least 0.5 inch were common outside a few dry pockets — parts of the lower Colorado Valley, the northern Rockies and some lower-elevation sites.

The heaviest totals topped 2 inches in:

• central and southeastern sections of the Four Corners region;
• scattered higher-elevation spots from western Montana through far western Wyoming;
• much of northern and eastern New Mexico, where 2 to locally 5 inches fell and localized flooding was reported.

The eastern half of the country was a different story. Exceptions were limited to the eastern Florida Peninsula (over 2 inches in spots), the Upper Mississippi Valley and northern Great Lakes (a few tenths to nearly an inch), and coastal southeastern Texas (a few tenths to just over an inch).

What does the map show by region?

South. Central and western Texas and Oklahoma improved again after repeated heavy rains, with some areas near the West region now free of dryness and drought. Farther east, sparse rainfall and abnormal warmth brought broad deterioration to the eastern fringes of both states. D3 to D4 extreme-to-exceptional drought now dominates much of Arkansas, where most locations have recorded 8 to 16 inches less precipitation than normal over the past four months — generally less than half of normal.

Midwest. Only the northwestern Great Lakes, most of Minnesota and northwestern Iowa saw several tenths of an inch; nearly everywhere else stayed dry. D1 to D4 conditions expanded in southern and eastern Missouri, and D3 to D4 now covers a large swath of central and southern Missouri. A central band from Iowa into northern Missouri remains mostly free of impactful dryness after several wet months.

High Plains. Excessive rain and flooding hit central and southern Colorado. One-category improvements were widespread across the southern half and northeastern Colorado, central through northeastern Nebraska, and southeastern South Dakota. South-central and southwestern Colorado, where several inches fell, earned the week's few broad two-category upgrades. Elsewhere, dryness held steady.

West. Improvement continued almost region-wide, most broadly in New Mexico, with additional gains in the lower Colorado Valley and central and western Montana. One caveat tempers the good news: long-term moisture deficits persist across much of the region, so drought removal was limited despite the wet pattern.

What comes next?

Through Nov. 2, forecasters expect 1.5 to locally near 4 inches of heavy precipitation over central Arizona, the central Rockies' higher elevations — including parts of Colorado already inundated — the High Plains of Texas and part of the central Gulf Coast. Little rain is expected in southeastern Texas. Temperatures will run 4 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit below normal across the central and western Four Corners, the Great Basin and much of the Desert Southwest, while the northern and eastern Great Plains see highs 5 to 13 degrees above normal.

For Nov. 3–7, above-normal precipitation is at least marginally favored over most of the Lower 48 — Montana is the notable exception, with drier-than-normal and warmer-than-normal conditions expected. Richard Tinker of CPC/NOAA/NWS/NCEP authored the outlook, and the next monitor will show whether forecast rains deliver on paper what parched Arkansas and Missouri still need on the ground.