SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — Siouxland has had a very dry stretch for most of the spring of 2023 so far, but May really saw some changes come aboard. Rain spread around Sioux City and surrounding areas starting May 4, and saw at least a trace of rain every day until May 15, with only one day receiving just a trace of rain, occurring on May 9.

From May 4 through 15, Sioux Gateway Airport has received approximately 3.41 inches of rainfall, which is approximately how much we saw from February through April, but in a 12-day period, instead of a 3-month period. This also helped improved drought conditions from Exceptional Drought to Extreme Drought, which is still not ideal but an improvement.

This stretch of rain is the longest amount of days with at least some precipitation since the week of December 23, 2009 through January 3, 2010. This was also the most precipitation we have seen at the Sioux Gateway Airport for the first two weeks of May since 2001, so it has been quite the wet month out there. We also have some rain chances late in the week and again next week, and could potentially decrease the drought deficit more and bring our total over the average for the month of May.

We also saw a total of 50 Tornado Warnings for the entire state of Nebraska on Friday alone, breaking a record for the most Tornado Warnings in Nebraska in a single day. The coverage of the NWS of Omaha also reports that there was 33 Tornado Warnings on Friday alone in the area, but the 10 year average shows that the number of Tornado Warnings for a whole year was about 26.3 Tornado Warnings. This included several counties in our coverage area, impacting Stanton, Cuming, Burt, Madison, Antelope, Knox, Pierce, and Wayne Counties on the May 12.

On the May 13, this affected some areas in the eastern parts of Siouxland, where Sac, Ida, Calhoun, Buena Vista, and Pocahontas Counties, where areas toward Laurens, IA had 6.9″ of rain on the May 13, bringing some heavy rain and tornadoes to that part of Siouxland. Other areas have seen a bunch of rain throughout the month of May with some areas seeing 5″+ of rain.

That gives a good hint that the May 12 and 13 outbreak is one to remember, where we don’t see outbreaks like this very often, and also shows how dry it has been over the last few years, and how this precipitation was very needed across Siouxland.