The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows that drought has expanded across the region this week. The area of extreme (D3) drought has doubled, and only three percent of the region has no drought at all. The largest area of extreme drought is in southern Georgia and northern Florida, where dry conditions cover most of that region. We do expect to get rain across most of the region other than the southern half of the Florida Peninsula on Sunday and Monday, so I expect to see drought decrease in some areas and hold steady in others, depending on how much we get. Puerto Rico is holding steady with just a few small areas of abnormally dry conditions. The pattern of near-normal rain coupled with warmer than average temperatures looks like it will persist at least into Week 2 and perhaps through early March.
