According to today's Drought Monitor report of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), while much of the contiguous U.S. is still experiencing drought or abnormal dryness, several storm systems dropped large amounts of precipitation over the past week in the form of rain or snow, especially in California and from eastern Oklahoma through Tennessee.
Since some of this precipitation fell near the Tuesday morning data cutoff, more analysis of the early week precipitation will be performed next week, when more data is available to analyze changes to ongoing drought conditions. In parts of the Great Lakes, Southeast, and northwest Kansas that missed out on recent precipitation, drought or abnormal dryness developed or worsened.
Conditions varied widely across the Midwest region this week. Short-term dryness continued in parts of Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, where recent precipitation mostly missed to the south and west before Tuesday morning.
Severe short-term drought developed in southeastern parts of the Michigan Lower Peninsula, where soil moisture and precipitation deficits mounted, and reports of groundwater problems emerged.
Meanwhile, in the southern tier of the region, from southern Missouri eastward through Kentucky, widespread moderate to heavy rain led to widespread improvements to ongoing drought and abnormal dryness, with most of southwest Missouri and almost all of Kentucky seeing a one-category improvement to conditions.
An early-week storm system deposited both rain and frozen precipitation in Iowa and other parts of the Upper Midwest near the Tuesday morning data cutoff. A small reduction in extreme drought coverage was made just northeast of Sioux City, Iowa, where higher amounts of precipitation fell.
Across the rest of the region that experienced significant precipitation on Monday night and Tuesday, further analysis will occur next week. More improvements may be made next week if the wider suite of data is supportive when it becomes available.
For the full USDA report for Dec. 15, click here.