According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, May 2014 marked the 24th-consecutive month during which drought of at least category D2 Severe intensity plagued some or most of this six-county portion of North Central Kansas, continuing one of the most notable droughts in decades. Unfortunately, in the wake of fairly decent April precipitation for much of the area, May signaled another setback as the vast majority of locations fell well-short of normal precipitation. According to reports from 20 NWS cooperative observers and also taking into account radar-derived precipitation estimates, essentially the entire six-county area observed below normal May rainfall, and more significantly, somewhere between 15-20% of the area measured less than one-fourth of normal May totals (meaning generally less than 1.05). In general, the driest areas focused west of the Highway 281 corridor. At places such as Smith Center, May marked the 10th month out of the last 13 months to feature at least slightly below normal precipitation (and fifth of the last six). Putting this prolonged dryness in another perspective, the nearly 7-month stretch from Nov. 7, 2013-May 31, 2014 finished as the 14th-driest on record (6.17) between those particular dates out of 105 years of records.
Despite the dubious May rainfall deficit across this North Central Kansas area, there was essentially no change whatsoever in drought classification during the month according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor. As a result, at month's end the majority of the area remained in D2 Severe drought, the far southern fringes of Rooks and Osborne counties maintained worse-off D3 Extreme drought, and most of Phillips along with northern portions of Smith and Jewell counties remained somewhat better-off with D1 Moderate drought. As for May precipitation extremes per NWS cooperative observers, a few of the paltriest totals included 0.60 four miles west-northwest of Plainville, 0.67 at Phillipsburg and 0.69 one mile north of Long Island. Although still below normal, a few of the comparably wetter sites included Burr Oak (3.01), Smith Center (2.70) and Mankato (2.35). Despite the prevailing below normal May precipitation regime across the local area, topsoil moisture supplies actually improved somewhat during the month within the north central district according to the USDA Kansas Crop Progress and Condition Report for the week ending June 1st, as the short to very short categories decreased from 68% to 59% since late-April. Subsoil moisture supplies exhibited similar slight improvement, decreasing from 83% to 78% short to very short.

Drought in JEWELL, KANSAS
From 01-MAY-14 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-14 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor

Drought in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 01-MAY-14 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-14 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor

Drought in OSBORNE, KANSAS
From 01-MAY-14 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-14 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor

Drought in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 01-MAY-14 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-14 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor

Drought in ROOKS, KANSAS
From 01-MAY-14 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-14 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor

Drought in SMITH, KANSAS
From 01-MAY-14 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-14 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor