Continued drought predicted for most of Nebraska

Below-average rain is predicted for Nebraska within the month of October.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, above-average temperatures combined with a lack of rain spells continued drought conditions for eastern and northwest Nebraska.

With this comes the issues of increased wildfire risk, and poor soil moisture for growing crops.

“Fall is a very critical time for winter re-crop,” said Eric Hunt, Agricultural meteorologist with the University of Nebraska extension. “At the time of year where we can, we do usually get some precipitation, and it is a good period of [soil] recharge. And we're not only not getting the recharge, these temperatures are consistently 10-15, in some cases 20-25, degrees above average.”

Poor soil moisture leads to the drying out of plants, which then offers kindling for wildfire.

Hunt recommends making sure to cut dense vegetation near your house, for smokers to be mindful of where they toss their cigarette butts, and for those camping to make sure to properly snuff out their campfires.

“These are all kind of things we're talking about in terms of just maybe reducing your fire risk," he said. “Hopefully that can change, hopefully we get some moisture soon. Usually, this time of year it's really green and the last several years it hasn't been because we've just been having late summer type of weather deep into September. Frankly that is just kind of a tell-tale sign of climate change.”