US National Weather Service Arkansas-Red Basin River Forecast Center

Drought continues across the ABRFC. Exceptional Drought (D4) expanded across western Oklahoma. There were also improvements across Kansas and our western areas. More rainfall is expected over the next week.

ABRFC's June 2026 Water Supply Forecasts for the Arkansas River Basin in Colorado have been issued.
It's been a very dry and warm 2026 Water Year. There isn't much left of the snowpack in the Arkansas Basin. Seasonal runoff forecasts are significantly below normal.
https://www.weather.gov/.../abrfc/WaterSupply/numerical.pdf
ABRFC's Water Supply page is at
http://www.weather.gov/abrfc/water_supply

ABRFC Water Supply The ABRFC issues water supply forecasts and images monthly from January through May of each year. Colorado forecasts are for the period April through September, while New Mexico forecasts are for the period March through June. New forecasts become available by the fifth working day of that month. Th...

Multiple rounds of heavy rainfall produced widespread 2"+ of rainfall across the ABRFC over the past week. Despite the heavy rainfall, no river flooding occurred.

While the recent wet weather has been a welcomed sight, coverage has not been widespread enough to provide significant drought relief. As such, drought larger persists across much of the basin.

Drought continues to worsen, outside of a one category improvement over mainly S KS. Hopefully we see more significant relief after the current wet pattern is over, which is forecast to last into next week.

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Exceptional Drought (D4) has emerged in the Texas Panhandle and Western Oklahoma. Oklahoma has not seen this level of drought since July 2023. Last week's snow and rainfall in Colorado created some small improvements. Very dry conditions are expected to continue in the western half of ABRFC while the eastern half will experience rain next week. Drought is expected to persist and worsen in the western half next week.

Turns out drought really does put the “brown” in “green-up season.” Oklahoma vegetation looked far healthier in May 2025 than it does this year, thanks to the dramatic expansion of drought across western and central Oklahoma. https://ticker.mesonet.org/

Some areas received some pretty nice rain, but still not enough for those hardest hit drought areas. A nice start, but another mostly dry and hot week won't help matters. https://ticker.mesonet.org/

Drought continues to dominate the ABRFC area. Conditions improved slightly across parts of Colorado, but persisted or worsened across the remainder of the basin.