May rains led to big improvement in drought conditions

Some North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network stations went a year without getting a daily half-inch of rain, and some went nearly two years without a daily 1-inch rainfall. Heavy rainfall throughout much of the region since the middle of May has changed that and helped improve drought situations in much of the region.

Bowman County had several stations that hadn’t received a soaking rainfall in a long time. But the rain didn’t fall evenly everywhere.

“In Bowman, we are close to 4 inches of rainfall the last two weeks,” said Penny Nester, North Dakota State University Extension ag and natural resources agent for Bowman County. “In the places out west, like along the Montana-South Dakota lines, they’ve been a little bit drier, so they probably got an inch, eighty hundredths, total, it’s just so spotty.”

But in some places, the rain came with some low temperatures and frost. In Bowman County, two NDAWN stations hit 31 degrees.

“So crop wise, you know we have enough small grains that that’s not going to be a big issue for us. But on the side of alfalfa and hay production and pasture production, that’s kind of what everyone is waiting for to see if it’s going to nip our alfalfa,” Nester said.

The worst drought conditions in North Dakota largely have been in the northwest, including McKenzie County, where dry conditions led to wildfires in the fall of 2024. About half of the county had been in extreme drought as of May 13, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, along with large portions of Mountrail, Dunn, Billings and Golden Valley counties.

Several NDAWN stations in McKenzie County received more than a third of an inch of rain May 14, and on May 15 and 16, numerous stations received more than an inch or even more than 2 inches of rain each day. That was followed by more than a quarter of an inch in some places May 19. Through May 27, the Watford City NDAWN station had received 5.18 inches for the month.

The Drought Monitor released May 29 showed marked improvement in North Dakota since May 13, though parts of McKenzie County, Dunn, Billings and Golden Valley counties still had spots of extreme drought.

Much of central North Dakota hasn’t struggled as much with drought conditions, but even some of those places were getting a little dry. That included Foster County, where NDSU Extension ag and natural resources agent Jeff Gale said farmers had gotten a good start on planting prior to the rainfall, which amounted to 2.26 inches at the Carrington NDAWN station and 1.81 inches at the Cooperstown station.

Farmers had gotten a good start on planting by the time the rain started and likely were ready for a short break, but the continued storms put them out about 10 days, he said.

“Often, the rule of thumb is, we’ll take rain whenever we can get it. It’s a headache at planting time, people get anxious,” he said. “But it’s nice to have the soil profile full of water heading into growing season.”

Farmers were back in the fields a few days after the rain stopped, and Gale said with a good week of work, most of the county’s crops will be planted. On the cattle side, ranchers have complained a little about muddy lots, but the cool, wet weather also kick-started pasture growth, he said.

Even with the long break from planting in some places, planting progress remains on or ahead of the average pace in the region, according to a Crop Progress report released May 27 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

North Dakota wasn’t alone in getting much-needed rain. In southwestern South Dakota, the Fall River station of the South Dakota Mesonet received only 15.5 inches of rain in 2024. So far, the station has received 4.04 inches in 2025, including 1.45 inches in May of which 1.39 inches fell from May 14 to 20. The Red River Valley and much of southern Minnesota received heavy rain on May 20.

The rain should help pastures in drought-stricken places, but since they already were stressed by previous years of dry conditions and grasshoppers, along with recent frost, it won’t solve all the problems.

Drought conditions improved in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota after the rains, but pockets of severe drought remain in South Dakota and North Dakota, with some extreme drought still in parts of western North Dakota. Extreme drought remains in northwestern Bowman County.

“Our recommendation is that we need rain before June 1st, and then, if it’s after June 1st, then we have to start looking at carrying capacity reduction,” Nester said. “But I think with the drought conditions that we’ve had previously, we’re just not really getting the grass that we should see by now, so we probably still are looking at decreased stocking rates regardless.”

More rain will be needed throughout the growing season still, and Nester said it’s always hard to tell how things will turn out. Grain farmers in the county are largely finished planting, while most livestock producers likely still have seed to put in the ground, she said. There are questions about how the weather conditions have impacted fertilizer that was applied earlier, and concerns about weeds that will come later.

But though the May rain didn’t solve all the problems of the growing season, Nester said it certainly still was vital. For instance, it likely saved the canola crop in the area.

“Everything that we got, we sure appreciated. So we didn’t get 6 or 8 inches, like other places did this last week, but we just got enough to at least put everyone in a little bit better mood, and we know that our crops are probably going to make it to the next stage of production. So that’s all that we can hope for,” Nester said.