{"id":29661,"date":"2026-02-01T20:09:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=29661"},"modified":"2026-02-01T20:17:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:17:59","slug":"latest-seasonal-drought-outlook-shows-drought-is-expected-to-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2026\/02\/latest-seasonal-drought-outlook-shows-drought-is-expected-to-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest seasonal drought outlook shows drought is expected to continue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NOAA&#8217;s Climate Prediction Center issued their final outlooks for February 2026 late last week. They show that colder than normal temperatures are likely to occur for the month, not a surprise considering the current weather and the likelihood of another cold outbreak the second week of the month. Precipitation has a chance of drier than normal conditions, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. This will contribute to the continuation of the drought that is currently affecting most of the region in the February through April period, which could mean issues with low soil moisture during the early part of the next planting season. I know some blueberry farmers in Florida are worried about the use of water to do freeze protection with drought conditions present, especially with all the cold weather we have had lately. See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/reel\/1437861564353629\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/reel\/1437861564353629<\/a> for a video showing how the use of water for freeze protection affected blueberry growers in this past storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-temp-outlook-final.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"791\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-temp-outlook-final-1024x791.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29662\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-temp-outlook-final-1024x791.gif 1024w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-temp-outlook-final-300x232.gif 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-temp-outlook-final-768x593.gif 768w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-temp-outlook-final-1536x1187.gif 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-precip-outlook-final.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"791\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-precip-outlook-final-1024x791.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29663\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-precip-outlook-final-1024x791.gif 1024w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-precip-outlook-final-300x232.gif 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-precip-outlook-final-768x593.gif 768w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/feb-26-precip-outlook-final-1536x1187.gif 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"791\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final-1024x791.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29664\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final-1024x791.png 1024w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final-300x232.png 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final-768x593.png 768w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final-1536x1187.png 1536w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2026\/02\/fma-26-drought-outlook-final-2048x1583.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOAA&#8217;s Climate Prediction Center issued their final outlooks for February 2026 late last week. They show that colder than normal temperatures are likely to occur for the month, not a surprise considering the current weather and the likelihood of another cold outbreak the second week of the month. Precipitation has a chance of drier than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":29664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-outlooks","category-drought","category-interesting-weather-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29661"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29666,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29661\/revisions\/29666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}