NEWS FLASH: Drought ends at Ponderosa

westksbowhunter said:
1.25 so far and it hailed for 90 minutes. Biggest was quarter size. It is starting to hail again now.
Update: 3.30 inches of rain and it hailed from about 6:00 pm to 11:30 pm on and off. Nothing bigger than quarter size but it kept coming on and off. Heard reports of half dollar size.
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Sorry to hear about the hail as part of the storm
 
Ponderosa still extreme drought. Buffalo grass hasn't greened up yet and cracks when you walk on it.

Firefighters from up to 200 miles are in to help the local. This morning is cool and light winds at the moment. I saw some forecast that the winds could turn to northly. That would be great so the firefighters could fight back fires rather than head fires driven with 50 mph gust.

Here is a report from Sunday evening May 17, 2026
 

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The record rainfall last year was a blessing for sure, but now the excessively growth last year(my CRP grass was shoulder high and thick) is providing so much vegetation for the fires.
 
Well, it's raining again, and of course lots of hail. I checked the gauge about 30 minutes ago, but the wind was so strong that there wasn't much in the gauge. Quite a few limbs down. It looked like La Crosse got it good.

Update: 1.20
 
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Probably no more harmful than the drought leading up to these two weeks. If the nest gets killed unhatched, at least they will renest. Plenty of time left and conditions are going to improve. Had another 1.7 last night into this morning. Sure would have liked to spread all this moisture out over more weeks earlier in the spring. Peak of the hatch is usually about June 20 by old standards. That would have the peak nests about 3-7 days into incubation. As always, it all depends on many variables and how widespread the impacts were.
 
.60 for us last night. At least the nights have been fairly warm. Will be interesting to see how the drought monitor moves this week. Hope we get out of D2. We have had 8.70 inches in the month of May. But if you look at Kansas Mesonet is has us for 4.23. The surrounding counties are about the same.
 
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Finally received rain on Monday night/Tuesday morning. 2.75" total to settle the dust. The Dodge City airport had gusts up to 77 mph. It blew a gale here, but not quite that hard. A few limbs down. I was fearful that the wheat would be laid flat from driven rain, but for the most part it is standing. The wheat is ready as is all the neighbors at the moment.
Hopefully this rain will green the buffalo grass pastures up. At the moment they are still brown and the cattle were only finding some green cheat grass in the bottoms.
 
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Should be some water dumped from the gauge today, route in extreme southern ks is green and looks ok. Not convinced there’s a lot of sub surface moisture but the storms have rolled through enough to come alive. Better late than never, grasshoppers starting to pop
 
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