The 2017 drought was a rapid-onset event for northeast Montana, the Dakotas, and the Canadian Prairies during the spring and summer of 2017. It was the worst drought to impact the U.S. Northern Plains in decades and it decimated crops across the region, resulting in $2.6 billion in agricultural losses in the U.S. alone, not including additional losses in Canada. The unique circumstances of this drought created an opportunity to evaluate and improve the efficacy of drought-related coordination, communication, and management within the region in preparation for future droughts.

Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Missouri River Basin March – May 2020. Dated June 2020.

Temperatures were largely near normal across the region this spring, with the exception of Colorado, which had its 12th warmest spring since records began in 1895. Although flooding impacted parts of the region this spring, warm and dry conditions early in the season reduced the flood risk and subsequent impacts.

Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Missouri River Basin September – November 2018. Dated December 2018.

Overall, it was a cool autumn across the Missouri River Basin, with widespread temperature departures in the 2-6°F below-normal range.  While precipitation varied across the region, it was a particularly wet autumn for an area extending from eastern New Mexico through Wisconsin.

Provides a definition of El Nino; the outlook for winter temperatures and precipitation; potential winter and spring impacts; and a look back at previous El Nino winters.

NOAA’s Regional Climate Services Program created these Outlooks to inform the public about climate impacts within their respective regions. Each regional report contains easy-to-understand language, and anyone can access them through the Drought Portal at https://www.drought.gov/drought/resources/reports.   

Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Missouri River Basin June – August 2018. Dated September 2018.  

Summer began extremely warm but ended with cooler temperatures across much of the Basin. Colorado had its 3rd warmest summer on record. Several areas of the Basin had a wet summer. For instance, portions of southeastern South Dakota and northeastern Nebraska had one of their wettest summers on record. However, drought was an issue for some areas, impacting crops and water supplies in Colorado, the Dakotas, Kansas, and Missouri.

Drought over the U.S. Northern Great Plains, defined here as Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, produced ‘Billion Dollar Disasters’ in 1988 and 2017. The principal cause of the 2017 drought was the record-low precipitation over much of northeastern Montana and western North Dakota, and near-record-low precipitation over central South Dakota during May-July.

Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Missouri River Basin March – May 2018. Dated June 2018.  

While the headlining story this season was the back-to-back temperature extremes of April and May, both flooding and drought impacted the region.

The United States Northern Plains, comprising eastern Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, experienced a severe and rapidly-evolving drought during the summer of 2017. Considering the importance of agriculture for the region, a better understanding of Northern Plains droughts and how they evolve is critical for drought early warning. In the document, a timeline provides a chronology of the meteorological and hydrological conditions associated with the record and near-record-low surface soil moisture ahead of and during the 2017 growing season.

The Northern Plains drought started in the spring and summer of 2017 and sparked widespread wildfires and compromised water resources, leading to the destruction of property, livestock losses, and reduced agricultural production. These impacts were felt in South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, by the tribes of the Northern Plains, and in the Canadian Prairies.

This two-pager examines the characteristics of past droughts over the U.S. Northern Great Plains region. NIDIS is partnering with the Physical Sciences Division of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory to examine the causes, predictability, and historical behavior of droughts over the Northern Plains. Drought behavior in the Northern Plains is understudied relative to other regions of the United States, and this research will help to lay a foundation for understanding drought predictability.