This morning’s new Drought Monitor shows that while the total drought area decreased slightly from last week, the area of severe drought expanded in Georgia and Alabama. With the high pressure center parked over us and excessive heat and little rain forecast for this weekend, the drought is likely to expand further in next week’s Drought Monitor. The soil moisture map below shows that northern Georgia and Alabama and western North Carolina are extremely dry, and point to possible expansion of the drought into middle Georgia south of Atlanta. Many areas in Georgia and Alabama have had less than 50 percent of their normal rainfall for the last 60 days. Fortunately, the longer-term forecast gives us a higher chance of precipitation, so that may alleviate some of the worst drought over the next few weeks.
If you have impacts of the drought to report, especially in northern and central Georgia, please email them to me at pknox “at” uga.edu and I will pass them on to the Drought Monitor folks.
