GOSHEN COUNTY – Goshen County hasn’t seen much moisture. There’s no doubt about it, Goshen County, like much of Wyoming is in a drought. According to the US Drought Monitor’s (USDM) December 24 report, extreme drought or D3 canvasses most of the county and beyond. As the stage one fire ban remains in effect for the county, one question sits in the minds of many, will Goshen County ever receive much needed precipitation? If so, when and how much?

“Extreme drought was removed from Carbon County, Wyoming, but remains in most or all of Platte, Goshen and Niobrara counties and large parts of Albany, Laramie and Converse counties in Wyoming,” a December drought information statement from the National Weather Service said. “D3 also covers and all or almost all of Daes and Sioux counties and large portions of Box Butte County, Nebraska.”

According to Rob Cox, Meteorologist-in-Charge at the National Weather Service Cheyenne office, there isn’t much of a chance for precipitation for Goshen County, at least for now. 

“There’s not a lot of potential for really any significant [moisture] in the near term right now,” Cox said. “At this point, the best chance will probably be around January 5-9 timeframe.” 

But even that isn’t very promising and the early totals are unpredictable, Cox further explained. 

“We do have some real cold air moving into the area during that timeframe and there is a chance of some precipitation most likely in the form of snowfall during that time,” Cox said. “So, probably, maybe next week.”

“It’s too early to say at this point in time, but for precipitation amounts, it’s kind of too far out in advance to predict,” Cox noted. “There’s chance that we may see some snow.”

Cox noted the drought was extreme in Goshen County. 

“Oh, it certainly is [dry]. When you see it rain on a day that usually it doesn’t rain on, it’s not usually during this time of year,” Cox explained. “Most of our precipitation falls in the form of snow and when I saw that earlier this weekend, at least here in Cheyenne, it fell as rain.”

Cheyenne and Torrington both saw a few sprinkles this past weekend, Cox noted, but it wasn’t enough to even record.

According to Cox, Goshen County will remain under the extreme drought category as December precipitation is well below the normal monthly average. 

“So far this year, in Torrington, for the month and day, we’ve only had so far a hundredth of an inch,” Cox said. “That’s for the month of December. For the year so far, we’ve had 7.71, which is about five inches less than a normal year. Typically, 12.82 is our normal value.”

As the Goshen County Fire Warden, Thomas Bozeman, continues to recommend a stage one fire ban continuation for the county, the weather service notes the impacts of the drought conditions fall on the agriculture community. 

“With the extreme drought, that obviously has some agriculture impacts,” Cox said. “An extreme drought, from what I see here on the USDM page, it says the snowpack is poor and the surface water is inadequate for ranching and farming.”

With no snow in sight, Cox noted the wind would continue to be a factor for Goshen County. 

“Mostly the wind is going to be the main concern over the next several days,” Cox said. “We’ve got some pretty high winds that are going to be moving through the next several days.”

“Wednesday does get a little more breezy, but not really that windy on Wednesday. It will be about 40 on Thursday. Still not too bad, most of the wind is probably going to be off to the west on Thursday,” Cox explained. 

The remainder of the week and into the weekend will be in the mid to upper 30s and breezy, according to Cox. 

“It doesn’t really look like anything significant at this point in time, just kind of chilly for this time of year. Precipitation chances look pretty small,” Cox said. “Let’s just hope for next week that we get a little bit more.”