Geary County has received above normal precipitation in May after months of below normal rain fall.

According to Chuck Otte, Geary County Research and Extension Agent, Junction City has received just shy of six and a half inches in May and average is around four and three quarters of an inch.

Most of the rain has been accompanied by only minor thunderstorms, nothing severe like other areas of the state.

“You know maybe we shouldn’t be talking about it, but we haven’t had the high winds, we haven’t had the hail, we haven’t had the flooding rains,” said Otte.

That hasn’t been the story for our neighbors to the east as Manhattan experienced some flooding that left multiple cars underwater in some locations of the city when more than four inches of rain fell within a four hour period on May 4th.

“Sometimes we complain that we miss all the rains, in this case we’re getting just enough rain. We’re sitting in a special place right now, we’re feeling very lucky.”

This weeks cooler temperatures and moisture is a big plus for the winter wheat crop according to Otte.

“It’s actually ideal grain fill conditions, which means that the crop that about a month ago I wasn’t real excited about, I’m getting a little more optimistic about. Most of the corn is planted, it’s still a little bit early for most producers to be planting soy beans. If it was going to turn rainy this wasn’t to bad of a time for that to happen.”

The cooler temperatures are expected to hang around for a few more days and possible scattered severe thunderstorms are in this weekends Memorial Day Weekend forecast.