Dodge City ? It may be just “bad luck,” but Dodge City is on the verge of the driest June through May period in its recorded history.

Dodge City just completed the second-driest June through April on record, with only 8.22 inches of precipitation.

If the city gets less than one-half inch of moisture in May, it will record the driest June through May period ever.

“We’re approaching the unprecedented as far as recorded history,” said Jeff Hutton, warning coordinator for the National Weather Service in Dodge City. “That’s significant, climatologically speaking.”

What has turned off the faucet?

“A majority of it is bad luck,” Hutton said. “We’ve been in a weather pattern part of the winter and into spring that we should be getting precipitation.”

Some weather systems that were positioned to produce precipitation coming off the Rocky Mountains have been too strong, forcing the dry air farther east. Other times, the systems have gone too far south or too far north. “It’s just been kind of bad luck,” Hutton said.

The amount of precipitation in the last 11 months is a deficit of 11.07 inches and only 43 percent of the average. The driest similar period since observations began in 1875 was June 1952 through April 1953, with 8.04 inches of precipitation.

Nearby, Bucklin received only 30 percent of its normal precipitation for June through March, with just 5.88 inches. “That’s a deficit of 13.22 inches,” Hutton said. “That’s hard to believe; it’s incredible.”

But wetter conditions can be found just an hour’s drive north. The Rush County community of Alexander is 2.7 inches above average for the same period.

“That’s what’s really bad,” Hutton said. “We’re nearing an unprecedented dry area in much of this local area, but not too far away, they’re not doing too bad. Even south into Oklahoma a ways, they’re a little wetter.”