March update: Latest drought news, how's your region doing?

Slight improvements have been made across the U.S. concerning the drought situation over the past week where heavy rain and snowmelt made positive impacts. However, many spots, especially in the western U.S., remain untouched by quenching precipitation.

The central and southern Plains as well as the lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast saw considerable rain last week through Tuesday, March 22. Two inches was the norm across these areas, but some places saw as much as 5 inches of fresh rain locally.

Parts of eastern Texas that were once in moderate drought conditions are back to normal thanks to the rain. Further east across the Deep South through the interior Carolinas, ground moisture has recovered, cutting back the abnormally dry conditions significantly. Although, moderate drought conditions remain along the Southeast Coast from coastal Georgia to northeastern North Carolina.

It is taking a while for parts of the Northeast and coastal Mid-Atlantic to recover from the drier winter months so abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions remain here.

As for the Upper Midwest, snowmelt has brought moisture back to the northern Wisconsin and western Michigan Peninsula soils. We’re not out of the woods yet here but moderate drought conditions have improved slightly to abnormally dry.

The western half of the U.S. mostly remains wrapped in drought but there have been a few improvements lately. The Front Range through the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles had recently been affected by rain and snow, shrinking the extreme and exceptional drought areas.

A similar shrinkage was found in eastern Colorado, including the Denver area, where severe drought was spreading across much of the area. Thanks to recent snow, much of the area has been downgraded to abnormally dry to moderate drought. Much like the Upper Midwest, we’re still not out of the woods here but improvement is improvement!

Little to no precipitation spread throughout California and the lower Great Basin in the last week and this was also followed by abnormally warm temperatures under a high-pressure ridge over the last few days. No improvements have been made here, especially across the California Wine Country where extreme drought is slowly spreading south towards San Francisco.

With the latest batch of rain weather that has spread across the eastern two-thirds this week, we look forward to some improvements, especially across the southern tier. The West will have to remain on hold at this time.