National Climatic Data Center, 13 February 2003

According to media reports (Casper Star-Tribune, 1/21):

• The continuing drought has yielded record crop losses in South Dakota and Wyoming, and the rest of the north-central Plains hasn't fared much better. Losses in Montana and North Dakota also are expected to be among the highest on record for those states when the final figures are tallied, said Dave Nickless, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency in Billings, whose office oversees federal crop insurance programs in the four states.

• In South Dakota, losses are currently at $311 million. That far exceeds the $193 million paid out the previous year, which Nickless said had been the highest on record. Wheat accounts for $92 million in losses and corn, $123 million.

• Crop losses in Wyoming have doubled from $7 million last year, which was the worst year on record, to $14 million so far. Sugar beets make up $4 million of those losses and forage accounts for $2.8 million, Nickless said.

• Kenneth Macy, who raises cattle and grain in southern Wyoming near Pine Bluffs, said the level of losses isn't much of a surprise.

  "This thing is as bad as can be, as bad as anybody can remember," Macy, who directs the Wyoming district of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said of the drought.

• Losses in Montana and North Dakota may not break records but still are likely to approach those levels, Nickless said.

• In Montana, losses are now at $150 million. That compares to the $167 million paid out for the 2001 crop year, which Nickless said is the second highest on record. The highest is $205 million, paid out in 1985, he said.

• Crop losses in North Dakota are at $304 million. That compares to the total of $305 million a year earlier, the second highest ever, Nickless said. The historic high is 1999, when $447 million was paid.