The latest Drought Monitor, released today, shows that drought expanded in most of the region this week due to warm temperatures and the nearly complete absence of rain. In west central Alabama and southwest Georgia, the areas of extreme (D3) drought nearly doubled and the extreme drought expanded into the Florida Panhandle, which is experiencing a similar lack of rain. Abnormally dry conditions also expanded in Puerto Rico.
The only part of the region that had improvements in drought status was the coastal Carolinas and a few small areas right along the East Coast in Georgia and Florida. This was due to the rain that fell last week from the non-tropical low that formed off the coast and pumped moist air and rain into the regions near where it was rotating. South Carolina received so much rain that the drought conditions improved by two categories, which is rare) and completely lost their dry conditions.
