Drought Tightens Grip On Nebraska

As of April 8, 2025, approximately 76% (58492 square miles) of Nebraska is under drought conditions and 22% (16716 square miles) is abnormally dry.

Holt County remains in the severe drought category. Soil moisture has declined over the past month with the lack of precipitation. Most of the state is short on soil moisture and the gains made in November are slowly being chipped away. Driest soils relative to normal are found in the North Central and Panhandle regions of the state but most places now are at least in the 30th percentile or lower for moisture. 

Most people understand that droughts have had a major impact on Nebraska in the past. Yet, many Nebraskans continue to be surprised when drought occurs. It is important to remember that droughts, including multiple-year droughts, are a normal part of Nebraska's climate. 

  A recent report from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources revealed that groundwater is continuing its slow decline amid the ongoing drought.

 The data shows that from 2023 to 2024, groundwater levels decreased by about a half a foot on average across the state.

 Aaron Young, a geologist with UNL's Conservation and Survey Division, said while agricultural producers aren't in imminent danger of their wells going dry, it's something to keep an eye on.

 “In eastern Nebraska we've been under some level of drought since early 2020 through mid 2024, and because of that groundwater level declines in eastern Nebraska were worse,” Young said.

 He explained that groundwater is like a bank account, and during a dry spell, farmers withdraw more water to make crops grow.

 “In a year that's hot and dry like 2023-2024 was, our bank account dropped a little bit,” Young said. “In wet years, we can refill that and we don't have to pump as much and we end up with a little bit of a rise.”

 While those short-term levels can recover fairly quickly, Young said it would take a few years of above average rain to do so, something Nebraska has been lacking.

 With about 75% of the state in a drought right now, other experts say the potential for fire is higher, especially on windy spring days.

 Eric Hunt, a professor of agricultural meteorology and climate resilience, said some of the snow over the winter “helped a little bit,” but Nebraska needs more precipitation.

 “Until we really start seeing more moisture across this region to kind of replenish that soil moisture, make the vegetation healthier, kind of help the relative humidity get a little bit higher, we're going to see that fire risk continue,” Hunt said.

 As for groundwater, Young said that compared to neighboring states, Nebraska is still doing better, due in part to the two thirds of the Ogallala aquifer under our feet.

 But he said an enduring drop could be a problem.

Although there were some sporadic attempts to collect weather information in Nebraska in the mid 1800s, the systematic collection of weather data in the state began in the late 1800s. Over the years, additional stations have been added to create a dense weather observation network. As a result, there are currently 358 weather stations in operation across Nebraska. Although these stations collect a great deal of information, they only provide roughly a century of data on climatic parameters such as rainfall. Therefore, when you hear that the 1930s drought period was Nebraska's “worst drought on record,” it generally means that this was the driest series of years since the late 1800s. However, studies using other methods to look further back in history reveal that Nebraska has experienced a broader range of drought conditions.

Soil scientist Harry Weakly with the USDA Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) looked at tree-ring records in Nebraska and put together a record of multiple-year droughts of five years or longer between 1210 and 1958 (Weakly, 1965). The most complete record was obtained from buried and surviving trees at Ash Hollow, near the western Nebraska town of Lewellen (Table I). His research revealed that the 1930s drought was not an unusual event. In fact, the “Dirty Thirties” look rather tame compared to some of the previous “mega-droughts,” like the 38-year drought in the late 1200s and the 26-year drought in the mid-1500s. Certainly, not every year in the multiple-year droughts was dry, but the overall trend was dryness. These and subsequent droughts have caused significant environmental effects, and had a great impact on Nebraska settlement patterns and agricultural operations.

Based on Weakly's and a wide variety of other paleoclimate studies, Woodhouse and Overpeck (1998) concluded in their recent analysis that the droughts during the 20th century are not representative of the full range of drought conditions experienced in the Great Plains

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