52 Nebraskaland • April 2020
MIXED BAG
RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY
By Martha D. Schulski
Landscape hues shift from shades of brown and dirty
white to hints of green that pop from long-dormant trees.
The spring sun warms the daytime, while nights hang on
to the last bit of winter's chill. Cloud patterns change from
stretched-out white and gray layers (stratiform) to cotton
ball masses (cumuliform) that can expand the depth of the
atmosphere. Rainfall begins in earnest and ramps up with
intensity toward our wettest months of the year on average
– May and June.
Have you noticed that when we do get rain, it usually
happens in the evening and overnight hours? Rainfall occurs
through several primary mechanisms, such as a large-scale
weather front marching across the Plains or daytime heating
that generates rising air currents. The latter can occur on a
localized scale with distinct boundaries of where it rains and
where it doesn't, thanks to those cotton-ball-looking clouds
that meteorologists call cumulus.
Rainfall also occurs on a regional scale, resulting in more
widespread areas of rainfall that can cover several counties
or bigger. These convective events provide us with an
abundance of rainfall in the late afternoon to overnight
hours, when compared to dawn and daytime hours. They can
also impact large swaths of Nebraska before losing energy
and dying out.
Have you also noticed that we seem to be getting more
rain lately? Well, your perception is right. Much of Nebraska
has gotten wetter – about 10 percent more for our annual
total since systematic record-keeping began. In fact, without
going back more than a century, 2019 was the second
wettest year on record (behind 1993). April, May and June, in
particular, is the time of year when we are seeing more rain.
So, get ready for wetter evenings and nights. You might
have been thinking "rain, rain, go away," but be sure and
bookend that with "come again another day." Timing is
everything when it comes to the weather.
Martha D. Shulski, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is
the director of the Nebraska State Climate office.
PHOTO
BY
JUSTIN
HAAG
