2025 The Year of a “Big Drought” for the Midwest

The word is spreading like the wildfire that many farmers hope to avoid. The conditions for the year of 2025 are looking to be a problem. Enough of a problem, that the ongoing drought could manage to get even worse as it’s been labeled as a “Big Drought” year.
The theory behind 2025 as a big drought year for the Midwest is built off a sun cycle known as the “Gleissberg Cycle”. This is a grouping of 11 year solar cycles, roughly 2-3 relatively strong cycles will be preceded and followed by 2-3 relatively weak ones. Cycles can be as short as 66 years but on-average are 100 years long. Historical cycles determined by studying carbon in tree ring data. The last three cycles are: 1700-1810, 1810-1910, and 1910-2010. At the current time, we are currently about 15 years into a Gleissberg Cycle now.
The reason that this matters is the periods of increased solar activity and radiation could lead to more evaporation. During years with little precipitation, this can worsen drought conditions, but it isn’t a “sole” cause of drought. Regardless if we’re looking at an 89 year or 100 year cycle, there is no clear pattern of drought based on solar cycles. A a bit more impactful to drought conditions are shorter-term patterns, and one of the most well known is the El Nino/La Nina pattern as we currently are experiencing a La Nina pattern.
There are a couple problems with directly comparing future drought to that of previous years, comparing historical drought between two years is a match, not an indication of a pattern. When we widen the view, we find that there is no clear pattern of drought based on a solar cycle (89 or 100 years in length) and historic drought data (based on tree rings) is imperfect before modern, standard measurements we see today. It is much more accurate to look at shorter time-scale weather patterns such as the La Nina/El Nino patterns. For farmers in the Midwest, this will mean continuing dry conditions had our pockets of extreme and exceptional drought every year since 2021, falling in the late summer and continuing through the fall, before winter precipitation takes us headed into the spring. With long-range forecasts in mind of average to below precipitation and average temperatures, drought conditions will continue where we experience them currently and potentially worsen in the regions already experiencing the worst of the drought.
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) out of Boise, Idaho, released a report on Friday, Feb. 28, stating there have been a total of 5,425 wildfires so far in 2025 that have burned 108,535 acres in the United States. This amount is above the 10-year average of wildfires, which sits at 4,526. Drought, warmer temperatures, and high winds are some of the weather factors that have led to thousands of wildfires already, and the wildfire outlook for this spring is concerning, especially across the Great Plains.
In late February 2025, the Nebraska Forest Service (NFS) played a pivotal role in combating the Custer County Complex Fire, a series of wildfires that scorched approximately 6,000 acres near Broken Bow, Nebraska. The complex encompassed three primary fires: the Eureka Valley Fire, the Lillian Fire, and the East Table Road Fire. The largest active wildfire in the U.S., as of Feb. 28, is the Dismal River Ranch Fire in the Sandhills of Nebraska, which burned 50,000 acres and is 85% contained. Nebraska’s governor also declared a state of emergency on Feb. 27 due to additional wildfires in Custer and Dawes Counties in central and western Nebraska. Northwest wind gusts near 30-40 mph, low relative humidity near 20% to 30%, and dry vegetation are to blame for the high wildfire risk in Nebraska on Friday.
Extra precautions will be needed throughout the Great Plains this spring to help reduce the risk of wildfires as the temperature and precipitation outlooks look favorable for additional wildfires to develop. When larger systems approach the region with higher winds, the wildfire risk will be especially elevated.
Taking a moment to speak on the wildfires was Public Information Officer Benjamin Bohall. Setting up the interview with Bohall, easy as could be, but unfortunately wildfires kept that conversation away for sometime. What’s happened in Custer County serves as a lesson, and a lesson Bohall hopes serves as a reminder of the challenges ahead, “It’s something to look back on past years and see similarities. The year 2012 was the worst year of wildfires in the history of Nebraska we had on record and 2022 was the second worst. To give you some insight and perspective, with Nebraska, fire season lasted from June until late September. Now were seeing what we had seen two weeks, maybe a week ago with fires beginning as early as February. We’re starting to see, basically what we consider fire years instead of fire seasons.”
Bohall continued, “You know in 2022, I think it was roughly over 250,000 acres that were burned. To gauge that, in Nebraska, anything over 100,000 acres is considered a bad fires season and we’ve continually hit that for the last three to four years. Going back to 2012, it use to be in Nebraska, we would have a bad fire season every 5 to 10 years. Before 2012, the last bad season Nebraska had was in 2006. That difference of the six from 2006 to 2012. We look at where we were in 2021 and what’s been happening in the following years. Easy to say that it’s definitely changed our capacity on how we approached dealing with wildfires now.”
Speaking on the changes of the environment, and the precautions needed to be taken for the year ahead. It’s not a matter of farmers and firefighters not knowing what’s in store, it’s recognizing how easy these wildfires can start, “It use to be that fires in Nebraska use to be a western problem, but now has become all of Nebraska. The eastern part of the State has been in perpetual drought for sometime. We’re not getting the moisture we need, whether it’s rain or snow, it hasn’t been enough. We had a couple years ago very dry conditions, then we got hit with a good portion of rain for a couple weeks. So much so that the vegetation kept growing back at a good rate, when it was cut again, a few days later when the dryness picked back up where it left off. It just created more fuel for that year. That’s from a weather perspective and the other factor which might be the most important is the human factor to wildfires.”
Bohall explained, “About 90% of wildfires in Nebraska are human caused which is 10% above the national average. That is an example, much like what we saw of the Custer County complex fire. Which happened due to debris burns. Debris burns and pile burns, those are the number one culprits to wildfires in our State. It’s not like these are being caused by people with burn permits. Several of the 40 wildfires that were across Nebraska, several were from those with burn permits. Unfortunately a lot of times they thought those burns were out, but those embers are tough and a good high wind can start that right back up, it doesn’t take much when the conditions are as they are right now. I know I brought up debris burns, but here’s something small to think about. In other situations, it’s things like an tire being a bit low, maybe hits a rock and that one spark is enough to catch flame. Even parking in tall enough grass has reason to be mindful of the environment and certain notices going on in someone’s area. One thing we’ve really learned about these past few years is how little it takes for one spark to set off a wildfire. We must be sure to do our due diligence with the current conditions we’ll be facing.”