Currently we are in a strong El Nino..  ( http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf )  Which SHOULD be bringing rains to the Southern Plains...???  Although we are currently 7.5" below average for the year here.. according to the nearest weather station..  It's taking about 1.5" of applied water to get the irrigated wheaties up...  My dryland wheat is sitting in dry soil right now.. mostly unemerged.

We got the HRW Wheat crop conditions yesterday ( http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProg/CropProg-10-2... ) with 14% of the US Crop rated poor to Very Poor about double last year's low ratings of 7%

Specifically Ks is 15% P / VP
Oklahoma is 22% P / VP
Texas is 20% P / VP

also the PNW is still showing effects of the on going drought with Oregon at 20% P/ VP

So what comes AFTER this El Nino?  

The Drought of 1988 followed a strong El Nino of 86/87 (speaking of the 1980's..)

( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17730574 )

The 1988 summer drought in the United States was the most extensive in many years. Because the drought developed in different places at different times, not all regional effects can be traced to the same cause. Along the West Coast and in the northwestern United States drought conditions developed during 1987 in association with the 1986 to 1987 El Niño in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Record low rainfalls from April to June 1988 led to rapid development of drought in the North Central United States.  Strong anticyclonic conditions and a northward displaced jet stream in the upper atmosphere over North America throughout this period were only part of pronounced and distinctive wavetrain of anomalies in the atmospheric circulation that appeared to emanate from the tropical Pacific. Below average sea surface temperatures along the equator in the Pacific in the northern spring of 1988, combined with warmer than normal water from 10 degrees to 20 degrees N, led to a northward displaced but still active intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) southeast of Hawaii. Results from a steady-state planetarywave atmospheric model indicate that the atmospheric heating anomalies associated with the displaced ITCZ can force an anomalous wavetrain across North America similar to that observed. Land surface processes probably contributed to the severity and persistence of the drought; however, the large-scale atmospheric circulation perturbations associated with natural variations in the coupled atmosphere-ocean system in the tropical Pacific were most likely the primary cause... 

Which would also line up with the AMO/PDO cycle.. some forecasters are already looking at these events to be stronger than the 2011/12 droughts.. although 2011/12 started in the US Southern Plains..  This is expected to develop over the Nothern Plains and move into the Cornbelt..

???

Edit Add:  AMO cycle : ( http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php )

PDO cycle: ( http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/ )