Across the board, the weather is too dry, too wet, or just right; El Niño is officially here but has had little impact so far

The Drought Monitor is maintained by the University of Nebraska.

The U.S. continues to experience a roller coaster of weather conditions.

In the Midwest, corn and soybean crops are showing signs of stress. "Last week, 34% of the U.S. corn crop was covered in drought, and this week it jumped to 45%. The second crop conditions ratings of the season from Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service confirmed dryness is starting to deteriorate crop conditions. . . . USDA and the National Drought Mitigation Center indicate 39% of the U.S. soybean crop is also in drought, which is an 11-point jump in a week's time," reports Tyne Morgan of Farm Journal. "The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows 54% of the continental U.S. is experiencing D0-D4, which is exceptionally dry to exceptional drought conditions."

What's good for the Plains has mixed outcomes for cotton planters in Texas. "The Plains [have been] hammered by consecutive years of drought. . . . Heavy rains led to widespread improvements to the ongoing drought in the western Great Plains. Rains also helped improve drought conditions in the southwest Florida Panhandle," Morgan explains. "While the wet weather is hampering cotton planting in Texas, the rains are helping cotton that's already in the ground. USDA-NASS says over half of the U.S. cotton crop is rated good to excellent, the best start to the crop in at least the past five years."

The West managed to overcome a lot of anticipated "big melt" disasters. "Officials painted a more optimistic picture of the potential for flooding from the record snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada. Even as the once-dry Tulare Lake expands — expected to swell to more than 117,000 acres at the end of May — new modeling suggests that inundation will be less damaging than originally predicted, sparing the major towns in the lake basin," reports Diana Leonard of The Washington Post. "Officials cite two reasons for the reduced risk: luck with the weather combined with ongoing efforts to divert and manage the floodwaters. But while the worst-case scenario for what could happen as California's historic snowpack melts this spring may be averted, some risk remains, simply due to the amount of snow still remaining in the Sierra."

Beginning in June, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration officially declared the arrival of El Niño. "The declaration is based on warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. NOAA notes it occurs every two to seven years. NOAA also says El Niño is expected to be moderate-to-strong by late fall/early winter," Morgan reports. "As farmers in Texas face a battle of planting their crops due to the sudden switch of heavy rainfall, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says El Niño is not to blame for the recent deluge of rain. . . . NOAA expects El Niño's influence on the U.S. to be weak during the summer but more pronounced in the late fall through spring. By winter, NOAA says there is an 84% chance of greater than a moderate strength El Niño and a 56% chance of strong El Niño developing."