Summarizes Feb 26-27, 2014 meeting in Nebraska City, Nebraska, to kick off Missouri River Basin DEWS. Attended by representatives of more than 70 federal, state, tribal, academic, regional and national institutions to discuss the current state of drought awareness, planning and capacity across the Missouri River Basin. The goal is to create a Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) in the region.

An summary of an assessment of operational and experimental forecast system skill and reliability in the Missouri River Basin. 

This report documents the development of the regional Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) for the Missouri River Basin from 2012 to present, with a focus on the 2014 launch meeting in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Meeting organizers included NIDIS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Western Region for March – May 2017. Dated June 2017.   

This Climate.gov feature highlights that the Ogallala Aquifer (which underlies parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming) is drying. This will likely be one of the most pressing issues facing water availability in the Southern Plains regions in the coming decades.

Information from regional Drought Early Warning Systems helped people make better decisions in many sectors, including construction, fish production, and agriculture. A recent survey assessed the value of drought and climate-related webinars and quarterly climate summaries produced for decision-makers in the Midwest and Missouri River Drought Early Warning Systems and in the Great Lakes Basin. The National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln led the survey, which was funded by the National Integrated Drought Information System.

Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook for the Western Region for December 2016 – February 2017. Dated March 2017.   

HIghlights from December 2016, January and February 2017 for the Western states include:

Review of conditions in July/Aug 2016; EDDI; water resources; short- and long-term outlooks for temps, precipitation and drought.

Two-page summary of the Climate Assessment Report: Causes for Hydrologic Extremes  in the Upper Missouri River Basin. The report demonstrates a strong physical connection between the increased frequency of high annual runoff events in the UMRB and the increase in precipitation falling over the upper basin.