A soggy December has helped much of the U.S. South recover from a drought that dried up reservoirs and turned crops and lawns to straw for the last two years, according to a federal report released Thursday.
A year ago, thousands of square miles (kilometers) across the region were considered in "extreme" or "exceptional" drought, the U.S. government's two worst categories.
But the latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows a wet December has helped dramatically, with none of the region currently in the worst category of drought.
Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas are completely drought-free, although a pocket of severe to extreme drought persists in the western tip of North and South Carolina and northeast Georgia, including a lake vital to the Atlanta area's water supply.
Eastern Tennessee, most of Kentucky and parts of Virginia and West Virginia remain in at least a moderate drought. Southern Texas is the only area in the United States still plagued by exceptional drought.
Forecasters say conditions began improving in the spring and through the fall as more regular rains helped add moisture to soil and dumped more water into rivers. October was dry, but more regular rainfall has spread across the area since then.
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On the Net:
http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
