U.S. Drought Monitor

[somethingfunny]

(For reference, here's the previous week's Drought Monitor)

Texas continues to improve except for the Western part of the state.



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^ Important note on that, it only includes precipitation that fell before 6am CST on Tuesday the 20th. That's why it shows huge improvements in Central Texas, but not East Texas. Next week's Monitor will include all the rain that fell in East Texas on Tuesday. I suspect it'll dramatically expand the area of "NONE"

[HouTXmetro]

Situation still improving.... Half of Houston is out of the drought now.

[Stephanie]

The western part of the state needs a serious intervention though.

[cycloneye]

This forecast is from April 5th to June 30th. Notice that Western Texas and NorthCentral Florida remain on the severe drought status.



http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/e ... ought.html

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[Ntxw]

Texas is fairing well compared to last year. Everything is so green in the eastern part of the state it's making allergies sufferers cry (no pun intended)! West Texas still needs more but their annual rain totals are low anyway so a good downpour would clean it out pretty fast.

[MGC]

The rains we have had along the Mississippi Coast have reversed the drought. The soil is now saturated. Hopefully the rain comes every week so I won't have to water the lawn like last summer......MGC

[PTrackerLA]

After multiple years of drought developing around here in the spring it is quite nice to have a "green year." It was a really beautiful weekend and I couldn't help but notice how lush everything is for this time of the year. Running almost 5" above normal since Jan 1st and looks like we'll get some rain this week as well. The drought in south LA is long gone thankfully!

[somethingfunny]

(For reference, here's the previous week's Drought Monitor)

Texas continues to improve except for the Western part of the state.



Uploaded with imageshack.us

^ Important note on that, it only includes precipitation that fell before 6am CST on Tuesday the 20th. That's why it shows huge improvements in Central Texas, but not East Texas. Next week's Monitor will include all the rain that fell in East Texas on Tuesday. I suspect it'll dramatically expand the area of "NONE"

We still have work to do. Hopefully several rounds of thunderstorms in West Texas this week will help them shake this drought off.

[OverlandHurricane]

The Minnesota Arrowhead is going to be a forest fire hotbed this summer. They'll have a coating of slush this weekend, but they need a lot more than that to get the fire risk under control.

[cycloneye]

The Florida situation is bad right now.Let's see if the rain expected this weekend aliviates the drought there.



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[horselattitudesfarm]

Here we go again: Fire weather advisories and diminishing chances of rain.....kinda sounds like last year.

WITH HIGH TEMPERATURES
IN THE 90S AND RELATIVE HUMIDITIES BELOW 30 PERCENT INCREASED FIRE
DANGER IS EXPECTED IN THE WEST...AND A GRASSLAND FIRE
DANGER STATEMENT WILL BE ISSUED.

and,

GFS/ECMWF/CMC ALL CAME IN DRIER THIS WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK BECAUSE
THEY NO LONGER SWEEP THE FRONT THROUGH NORTH TEXAS.
INSTEAD...FRONT PUSHES INTO NORTHWESTERN COUNTIES SATURDAY AND
THEN RETREATS NORTH AGAIN SUNDAY AFTERNOON. HAVE LOWERED POPS IN THE
SOUTHEASTERN TWO THIRDS OF NORTH TEXAS AS A RESULT OF THIS CHANGE.
LOWER POPS ALSO EQUATES TO HIGHER TEMPERATURES...AND HAVE PUSHED
HIGHS DURING THE WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK UP 5-10 DEGREES.

Is it my misperception or are our April and May's in Texas getting drier?

[cycloneye]

This drought forecast is from April 19 thru July 31rst. Of course,Puerto Rico is not included as a drought area witrh 175 flood advisories so far in 2012.



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[Stephanie]

We'll need several more soaking events like last weekend to get us fully out of the drought, but at least, per the map, we are going to see improvement. We had rain last night and are looking for another round on Tuesday night. As long as the moisture comes regularly, then I think we'll be alright.

[cycloneye]

Here is the latest update for Texas and Florida.

[cycloneye]

Beryl aliviated the Florida and SE Georgia areas.

[cycloneye]

What a big difference a tropical system can do to eliminate almost the entire state of Florida from the drought situation.

On May 8.



On June 26.

[somethingfunny]

The gains have ended their progress in Texas as every category except D4 has expanded a bit this week. No D4 though!

[somethingfunny]

The drought is intensifying in the southwest, however. They likely won't see relief until this winter's predicted El Nino arrives. The Mid-Mississippi Valley is also having severe problems. Really, an abnormally large amount of the United States is having some degree of drought right now:



Georgia continues to wither as well; you can see the sharp cutoff where Beryl and Debby did not reach:

[somethingfunny]

The Minnesota Arrowhead is going to be a forest fire hotbed this summer. They'll have a coating of slush this weekend, but they need a lot more than that to get the fire risk under control.

Eeeesh. Careful what you wish for!!!

[Stephanie]

It is incredible to see how much of the country is in some sort of drought. I do hope that a decent monsoon season does develop for the Southwest. I'm glad that Texas and Louisiana are doing better than last year.