“70 degree days in January, with 70 to 80 mph winds, has blown soil all over the place.”
Sobering Farm Journal report from Nebraska.
KEARNEY — Recent rainfall struggled to make a dent in the long-entrenched drought conditions across the state, per the U.S. Drought Monitor’s most recent update on Thursday, May 28.
The update does not account for the rainfall that parts of the region saw over the weekend.
Hall, Adams and most of Buffalo County are under severe drought, D2, conditions. Kearney and a swath to the south and west and north central Nebraska are under extreme drought, D3, conditions.
A pocket of exceptional drought, D4, conditions still exist in northern Gosper County into the southern half of Frontier County. As of the last update, 8.2 percent of the state is under D4 conditions.
Looking statewide, 95 percent are under some type of drought conditions.
“By mid-week, much above-normal temperatures had returned to the Plains, with daily maximum temperatures climbing into the upper 90s in some locations,” per U.S. Drought Monitor.
“As below-normal temperatures transitioned back to a hot pattern across the High Plains, widespread precipitation moved through the region. Areas of convection brought up to two inches of rain to portions of eastern Nebraska and eastern Colorado, while amounts were generally an inch or less elsewhere,” per U.S. Drought Monitor.
“This precipitation was sufficient to bring some drought reduction across northern and northeastern Colorado, but drier conditions across southeastern Colorado and Kansas, coupled with hot temperatures, resulted in degradation,” the U.S. Drought Monitor stated in their update on the High Plains.
More than 60% of the continental United States has been under moderate drought or worse conditions since April 7, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The nation as a whole has experienced a dry, warm period that began in the early autumn of 2025 and has pushed into recent weeks, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told ABC News.
Farms in the Midwest that produce winter wheat have been especially impacted, Rippey said. The largest region that produces winter wheat — the Great Plains stretching from Montana to Texas — has been hit the hardest by drought as well as some spring freezes, Rippey added.
Up to 44% of this year’s winter wheat is rated as very poor to poor, according to the latest data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), released on Tuesday. Nebraska is at the top of the list, with 82% of its winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor, but states like Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas are experiencing high rates of poor crop as well, according to the NASS.
While there was good moisture when the winter wheat was planted in the fall, extremely dry conditions from the beginning of March through the first half of May prevented optimal growing conditions, Brad Fuller, president of the Western Horizons Corporation and a consulting agronomist to many farms in Kansas, told ABC News.
