The intense drought spread across the central and southwest Great Plains and into Texas worsened last week. The worsening condition in this region was observed in each climate division within the affected area except much of Kansas where intense drought remained steady, southeast Colorado, and the upper coast of Texas.

The Climate Impact Company ENSO forecast indicates a weak El Nino ahead for meteorological summer 2023. However, the subsurface equatorial Pacific is warming rapidly and the aggressive El Nino forecasts by dynamic models are slowly gaining credibility.

During the past 7 days the U.S. precipitation pattern observed a widening dry regime featuring little or no precipitation across most of the U.S. including the ongoing D3/D4 drought in the central and southwest Great Plains to Texas. The only recent wet periods in the Central U.S. were Feb. 26-Mar. 4 and Mar. 19-25 when heavy amount stayed just east of the drought zone. Consequently, the drought condition is increasingly aggressive from Nebraska to Kansas to northwest and west-central Texas .