U.S. Drought Monitor The national drought footprint shrank
slightly this week, as heavy rains fell across the South,
Southeast, Midwest and parts of the Mid-Atlantic states, and
major snowfall blanketed parts of the Rocky Mountains and
Northern Cascades, bringing relief to those regions. However,
the hardest-hit drought region — the Great Plains — continued to
experience drier-than-average conditions, with the drought
continuing to hold on. A new federal drought outlook issued on
Thursday projects that the drought conditions are likely to
remain entrenched through April, and that the drought may even
worsen from the Plains to the Rockies and into the Southwest,
along with another area of persistent and expanding drought in
the Southeast, including southern Georgia and the Florida
Panhandle. 14-Day Observed Precipitation Rainfall during the
past two weeks, showing the rains that fell from Texas through
the Lower Mississippi River Valley, but lack of precipitation
across the Plains. Credit: NOAA. “Unfortunately