Moderate Drought Appears Outside KC But Fades To The East

Drought conditions in Missouri as of Mar. 26th, 2024. (The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC.)

Missouri enjoyed an overall improvement on this week’s US Drought Monitor, but areas around Kansas City fell into the first stage of drought condition. The weekly update shows a majority of Cass, Jackson, Johnson, and Lafayette counties falling into moderate drought from abnormal dryness, the most significant downgrade on this week’s map. Knox, northwestern Lewis, northern Macon, and eastern and southern Adair counties also fell into moderate drought. Elsewhere, a portion of western McDonald County entered abnormal dryness.

However, upgrades across south central and eastern Missouri more than offset the week’s downgrades. Northern Crawford along with the corners of Franklin and Gasconade counties improved to moderate drought from severe. An area stretching from eastern Cole and western Osage counties south to the Arkansas state line exited abnormal dryness, while moderate drought came to an end in Maries, Osage, Phelps, Texas, Warren, western Dent, northwestern Franklin, northern Gasconade, and westernmost St Charles counties. St Louis City along with southeastern St Louis County exited moderate drought, as did Cape Girardeau, Mississippi, Scott, Stoddard, southeastern Perry, southeastern Wayne, and a majority of Bollinger counties. Abnormal dryness also ceased in Pemiscot County along the Arkansas border.

29.4 percent of Missouri is in some stage of drought, a 3.9 percentage point improvement. That includes 2.67 percent in severe drought. 46.9 percent of Missouri is in abnormal dryness, leaving 23.7 percent of the state with normal or excess moisture.