SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — Several rounds of rain and even some heavy storms made their way through Siouxland over the past several days providing some much needed rain and relief to many areas.

Some of the heavier totals fell over parts of northeast Nebraska and through central and southern portions of northwest Iowa. The largest total reported was out of Coleridge located in south-central Cedar County in Nebraska.

Just northwest of Sioux City, in the extreme southeastern portion of South Dakota, Jefferson received a reported 1.83″ of rain. Other rainfall totals across Siouxland include:

Here in Sioux City, 1.69″ of rain was reported out at the Sioux Gateway Airport, with 0.96″ of that falling just this past Friday alone, nearly setting a record for daily rainfall. We fell just 0.02″ short of that record set back in 2001.

In comparison to this time last year, we are making improvements, at least in Sioux City. Since January 1st of this year, the Sioux City area, despite being 0.34″ below average for precipitation, has seen 2.28 inches more than we did last year at this time.

Looking at just Meteorological Spring, Sioux City has already seen a quarter inch more rain/precipitation since this point last spring. Unfortunately, we’re still 1.58″ below the average 5.80″ with 4.22 inches of precipitation recorded since March 1st, a deficit of 1.58.”

The month of May, however, is already looking wetter than average with Sioux City receiving 1.77″ in just the first week of May, leaving us 0.88″ above the average of 0.89″ and 1.29″ above what the recorded 1.16″ we saw this time last May.

While the rainfall wasn’t anywhere near enough to completely remedy ongoing drought conditions, it may have been enough to shift some areas within the exceptional drought category closer to improving to extreme drought status and slightly tweaking some of the other drought categories. The next update of the US Drought Monitor will be this Thursday, May 11th.