GARDEN CITY — Thursday, farmers, ranchers, and related professionals from western Kansas met at the Finney County Fairgrounds for a workshop focused on managing drought.  Climatologists were on hand to give an overview of the current drought.  In a nutshell, it’s not over.  

Drought timeline
The current drought officially began in October, 2010.  On Oct. 4, 2011, it was determined much of the south central and south western area of Kansas was in an exceptional drought.  
In March, 2012, climatologists hoped the drought was over, but it wasn’t.  In fact, it proved to be the driest May through December on record for north western Oklahoma and parts of south western Kansas, and 2012 was the warmest year on record  according to Gary McManus, Oklahoma State Climatologist.
“By May 2012, it was beginning to look good, but then the drought started up again and lasted from May 1 through Jan. 21, 2013. In February, 2013, the weather pattern became cooler and wetter,lasting through September. But the relief was only short-lived. The drying pattern is back and is expected to last until May, McManus said.  
Climatologists have concluded this is either a 50 or 100 year climate event, similar to this area’s drought in the 1950s or possibly the 1930s.    Even still, these two events were relatively small droughts compared to some in the paleoclimate record he said.
By interpreting physical evidence in the natural environment, like measuring the thickness of tree rings, ice, soil and sediment core samples, scientists can tell a lot about the weather that happened hundreds to millions of years ago.  He produced graphs on which the two most recent prolonged droughts were very short in comparison from some 500 to 1000 years earlier.  One particularly long one occurred in the 1200s, and may have been responsible for the end of the Mesa Verde cliff dwelling civilization in Southern Colorado, which lasted around 60 years.  
“We’ve really enjoyed a wetter pattern over the past 100 plus years,” McManus said.  “It’s important to remember what’s happened in the past.”
While rainfall once again fell, helping to replenish the Cheyenne Bottoms this past fall, the area still hasn’t received enough accumulated moisture to bring us out of drought.  Looks can be deceiving.  Even though there has been plant growth, we’re still only at 50 to 90 percent of average rainfall over most Western Kansas.  It hasn’t been enough to percolate and saturate the subsoil, and that means if it gets hot and dry again, it will take much less time for the signs of drought to once again appear, he said.

Rooting for El Nino
Klaus Wolter, a research associate with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration  Cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Sciences based in Boulder, Colo.  He consults with the National Integrated Drought Information System, and produces climate models for corporations.   He agreed the drought will persist, at least through the next six months while the area is in a La Nina weather pattern with hotter and drier conditions.
“What you need to do is root for El Nino if you want to end the drought,” he said.   The weather pattern is characterized by having cooler and wetter temperatures, especially in the summer.  And the pattern is overdue by a couple years, he said.  While a La Nina pattern doesn’t necessarily indicate a drought, he added, the end of a drought is always associated with El Nino.  The pattern manifests in the summer, he said.  

McMannus said the odds are higher that El Nino will once again arrive this summer than they’ve ever been, but there are no guarantees.  
“The best news of all is, currently here in the high plains area, there has only been one drought that hasn’t ended, and that’s the current one,” he said. “ I think we can all agree, though, that we’re ready for this one to end.”