This past Sunday, July 9, marks exactly 100 days since April 1, a date that meteorologists often use to define the start of the summer growing season. In practice, the start of the growing season varies by year, crop, and location, but selecting a common start date is useful for comparing different years. In this article, we take a look at how the 2023 growing season to date has compared to 2022, and how 2023 compares to normal for Kansas.
Table 1 contains data for 27 locations across Kansas, three from each of Kansas’ nine climate divisions. There are two columns for temperature, specifically the number of days on which the high temperature reached at least 90°F between April 1 and July 9 for this year and 2022. The last four columns contain precipitation data. The first two of those four columns contain total precipitation from April 1 to July 9 for 2023 and 2022, and the last two columns contain normal precipitation for this period and the departure from normal for the period in 2023.
High-temperature days are lower in 2023
The number of 90-degree days has been lower at every single location in 2023 than it was in 2022. Goodland has only reached 90 degrees three times. Of these three days, the warmest was a 93°F reading on April 12. While Liberal has had 13 days of 90-degree temperatures since April 1, the warmest day was 98°F back on May 9. Liberal averages 80 days at or above 90° each year, and 16 days at or above 100°. The fewest 90-degree days in Liberal in a year is 36, and every year on record has had at least three days with highs at or above 100°F. Is it possible that this year could be 100-degree free at Liberal? Yes, but there’s still plenty of summer to go. Garden City has had just 7 90-degree days this year, compared to 35 by this time last year. Manhattan’s 10 is exactly half the count from last year. Topeka is closest to matching 2022’s count, with 23 90-degree days so far, just three shy of 2022’s count. It’s worth noting that Topeka had 50 more 90-degree days after July 9 in 2022, and averages 21 such days on or after August 1.
Western Kansas outpaces Eastern Kansas for rainfall
One reason for the lack of heat has been an abundance of precipitation, particularly in western Kansas. All nine locations in western Kansas have had more precipitation in 2023 since April 1 than in 2022, and all but one of them are above normal for the growing season. Liberal is one of the above-normal locations; their 10.43-inch total is over double the total for the same 100 days in 2022. The normal rainfall for Liberal during this same period is 8.72 inches. Goodland’s 12.43 inches since April 1 is 150% of their normal precipitation of 8.29 inches. Garden City is almost 4 inches above normal for the growing season. In addition, Garden City has received over 10 inches more precipitation in 2023’s growing season than in 2022 (<2 inches).
Not all parts of Kansas are wetter than last year. All nine locations in eastern Kansas are below their 2022 growing season totals as of July 9. In addition, all of them are at least 3 inches below normal for the growing season to date. The differences are most notable in east central and southeast Kansas where Topeka and Chanute are more than 7 inches below their 2022 totals. Chanute is running over 8 inches below normal for the growing season, while Topeka is over 6 inches below normal. In central Kansas, most locations are below the 2022 totals, but Great Bend and Medicine Lodge are ahead of last year. Medicine Lodge is the wettest of the 27 locations, with over 17 inches of precipitation since April 1. So far in the first 9 days of July, Medicine Lodge has had 6.45 inches of rain, more than twice their normal amount for the entire month of July! Medicine Lodge is the only location in central Kansas above normal; the other eight sites have growing season precipitation deficits ranging from 0.87 inches (Salina) to 4.27 inches (Hutchinson).
Table 1. Comparison of 2023 and 2022 counts of 90-degree days and growing season precipitation total, normal, and departure from normal (in inches) for the period April 1-July 9 (Source: SC-ACIS). Bold numbers indicate the higher value in each pair.
|
Division |
Location |
Number of days with highs ≥ 90°F April 1-July 9 |
Growing Season Precipitation (inches) April 1-July 9 |
||||
|
2023 |
2022 |
2023 |
2022 |
Normal |
2023 Dep. |
||
|
Northwest |
Colby |
9 |
30 |
12.46 |
4.97 |
8.52 |
+3.94 |
|
Goodland |
3 |
26 |
12.43 |
5.35 |
8.29 |
+4.14 |
|
|
Hill City |
20 |
32 |
9.42 |
4.97 |
9.08 |
+0.34 |
|
|
North Central |
Concordia |
17 |
25 |
9.72 |
11.28 |
11.90 |
-2.18 |
|
Plainville |
18 |
28 |
7.55 |
8.77 |
10.66 |
-3.11 |
|
|
Washington |
12 |
21 |
10.52 |
20.06 |
13.68 |
-3.16 |
|
|
Northeast |
Holton |
5 |
18 |
11.34 |
13.80 |
15.20 |
-3.86 |
|
Manhattan |
10 |
20 |
12.24 |
19.04 |
15.50 |
-3.26 |
|
|
Marysville |
11 |
18 |
10.03 |
15.65 |
14.25 |
-4.22 |
|
|
West Central |
Russell Springs |
12 |
37 |
11.29 |
3.96 |
7.67 |
+3.62 |
|
Tribune |
6 |
26 |
11.15 |
5.51 |
7.36 |
+3.79 |
|
|
WaKeeney |
14 |
28 |
5.93 |
5.62 |
10.11 |
-4.18 |
|
|
Central |
Great Bend |
10 |
33 |
10.22 |
7.19 |
11.74 |
-1.52 |
|
Russell |
16 |
30 |
7.24 |
8.52 |
10.50 |
-3.26 |
|
|
Salina |
19 |
29 |
11.74 |
16.40 |
12.61 |
-0.87 |
|
|
East Central |
Emporia |
15 |
24 |
10.57 |
16.54 |
14.58 |
-4.01 |
|
Olathe-Indust. Airport |
14 |
25 |
9.49 |
15.20 |
15.66 |
-6.17 |
|
|
Topeka |
23 |
26 |
8.99 |
16.17 |
15.11 |
-6.12 |
|
|
Southwest |
Dodge City |
11 |
40 |
12.67 |
4.26 |
9.19 |
+3.48 |
|
Garden City |
7 |
35 |
12.52 |
1.79 |
8.53 |
+3.99 |
|
|
Liberal |
13 |
42 |
10.43 |
4.41 |
8.72 |
+1.71 |
|
|
South Central |
Hutchinson |
22 |
31 |
8.07 |
11.60 |
12.34 |
-4.27 |
|
Medicine Lodge |
18 |
40 |
17.17 |
11.97 |
10.39 |
+6.78 |
|
|
Wichita |
13 |
29 |
11.96 |
18.57 |
14.42 |
-2.46 |
|
|
Southeast |
Chanute |
24 |
29 |
8.50 |
15.56 |
17.08 |
-8.58 |
|
Coffeyville |
21 |
29 |
10.32 |
15.01 |
17.00 |
-6.68 |
|
|
Winfield |
19 |
30 |
12.38 |
19.79 |
15.69 |
-3.31 |
|
Matthew Sittel, Assistant State Climatologist
msittel@ksu.edu
Tags: weather precipitation high temperatures growing season