During May 2023, drought further worsened across the vast majority of this six-county North Central Kansas area per the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), putting the area under its overall-worst drought classification in a decade. By month's end, most of the domain was assigned at least Severe Drought (D2), marking the most widespread local coverage of D2-or-worse since April 2013. On a more recent note, this also marked the 16th consecutive month that D2 plagued at least some portion of the local area. However, of greater concern during May was a steady expansion of both Extreme Drought (D3) and worst-off Exceptional Drought (D4) as a gradually-worsening drought situation over the last few years ratcheted up another notch. By the time May closed, at least portions of all six local counties were afflicted with D3 and at least portions of five counties contained D4, marking the greatest local coverage of D4 since Feb. 2013. Although precipitation deficits during May were not as extreme as those during March-April, the ever-building dryness heading into the 2023 growing season made significant drought degradation an inevitability (see below for more May precipitation details). Focusing on county-level USDM drought category specifics during the month, the first two USDM issuances of the month featured widespread expansion of D2+D3. More specifically, the vast majority of the previously-better-off Moderate Drought (D1) zone within all of Jewell County along with much of Smith/Jewell counties was quickly converted to D2/D3, leaving only a lingering stripe of D1 across eastern Mitchell and extreme southeast Jewell counties. As for the worst-off D4 areas, although the first half of May saw a slight northward expansion across more of Rooks County, all local D4 remained confined to much of Rooks and southwestern Osborne counties. The second half of the month brought further increases in the areal coverage of D3/D4, with D3 expanding into northeastern Smith/northwestern Jewell counties and D4 ballooning to include much more of Osborne County along with small portions of southern Smith, far southwestern Jewell and far western Mitchell counties. At month's end, roughly 95 percent of the six-county area was assigned D2-or-worse, roughly two-thirds of the domain contained D3-or worse and around one-third of the area featured worst-off D4 (including the vast majority of Rooks/Osborne counties).
Turning to May 2023 precipitation details, rainfall trends across the six counties as a whole were best described as moderately (but not extremely) dry. Totals were actually relatively variable across the area, although the majority of the domain tallied between 1.50-4.00 inches, or about 35-95 percent of normal. Unfortunately, around 95% of the area checked in at least slightly below normal, and more concerningly, nearly 40% of the area fared no better than one-third to one-half of normal. Per a combination of measured totals from around 20 NWS/CoCoRaHS observers along with AHPS precipitation analysis, the very-driest pocket in North Central Kansas was centered over east-central Osborne County, while the primary, tiny patches of perhaps slightly above normal rainfall resided over north central Phillips and far south central Rooks counties (unfortunately no ground-truth gauges in these particular places). One of the driest long-term NWS stations was Beloit, which registered its 12th-driest May on record (out of 114 available years) with only 1.36. More notably, Beloit endured its 4th-driest March-May (meteorological spring) on record with merely 2.17/26% of normal. Getting back to May-only data, a few of the lowest NWS/CoCoRaHS totals were: 1.36 in Beloit, 1.41 near Hunter, 1.51 near Osborne (KSU mesonet) and 1.62 at Cawker City. On the more fortunate (but no better than near to slightly below normal) side of things, a few of the highest monthly amounts featured: 4.12 in Plainville, 4.06 in Lebanon, 3.67 at Logan and 3.66 in Ionia.

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

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

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

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

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

Drought in JEWELL, KANSAS
From 02-MAY-23 00:00:00 to 31-MAY-23 23:59:00 (CST-6)
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Drought Monitor