Drought End and Storm Tracks

Can ProfessorRoush get a "Hallelujah" from the chorus, please?  Just this week, the National Weather Service (or whatever organization tracks such things) declared the entirety of Kansas to be drought free for the first time since July 13, 2010.  I don't think my specific area has been suffering continually for that long, but certainly the subsoil moisture has been nonexistent for at least 2 years here.  As a matter of fact, as late as 4/12/16, 97% of Kansas was still designated in some degree of drought or another.  The rains of late April and early May really helped us out, even though my garden performed better in previous years with a little drought AND NO HAIL!

On a related note, for those readers who subscribe to various New Age theories, there is a pattern to storms here in Kansas that I'm at a lost to explain.  Storms often seem to follow one or two tracks across the state from west to east;  they parallel I-70 either south of it or north, but they seldom seem to cross I-70 diagonally.  Look closely at this screen shot of the radar on my iPhone on Tuesday morning.  I-70 is the horizontal highway that runs through the dots that designate Topeka and Salina.  This storm touched the highway, it but stayed just north along it all the way across Kansas.  I've seen this pattern very often.  So what is it about the highway that seems to direct the storms?  Geomagnetic lines?  Ley lines?  Ancient Native American pathways?  UFO flight paths?  Will this change as the Earth's magnetic poles continue to weaken?   Inquiring gardeners want to know.

But they'll only get to wonder for a short time.  Because I'm only leaving this post up to head the blog for 24 hours before we return to plant-y things.  ProfessorRoush is far too grounded to worry much about the mystical things.