We woke up to cloudy skies and the hope of rainfall, but for many, not a drop fell. The feeling was similar to a January morning with expectations of snow, only to find it skirting by only miles away.
A band of heavy rain and thunderstorms set up last night, prompting flash flood warnings from Kansas to Arkansas. Rain amounts in a narrow corridor from Wichita to Little Rock were excessive, with some spots receiving more than half a foot of rainfall.
Heavier rains clipped Southwest Missouri from Cassville to Harrison, but all in all, this is a disappointment with a hard northern edge to the rain shield. Dry air won the fight locally with little to no rain falling east of a Lamar, MO, to Mtn. Home, AR, line.
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All of this adds up to bad news as the developing drought worsens. The latest drought monitor out this morning shows an expansion of drought conditions across Missouri and Arkansas. Moderate drought conditions now envelop much of Southwest Missouri, along with Southeast Missouri into Northern Arkansas.
With little hope of additional rainfall this month, August for some will go down as the driest on record. And, it’s a dry pattern that will likely spill over into the first half of fall…