The amount of US drought has decreased markedly since the beginning of winter, falling to its lowest level since 2020 as of the end of March.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Tuesday just 18% of the continental US was in some form of drought at the end of last month. That is down from 20% at the end of February and 36% at the beginning of winter. Last year at this time, about 28% of the US was being impacted by some form of drought
And not only has the amount of drought declined, so has the intensity. Extreme and exceptional drought – the two worst drought categories – was only impacting about 1% of the US at the end of March, also the lowest since May 2020.
Meanwhile, with drought affecting less area of the country than in recent years, the drought outlook for April has less coverage too, with a mix of drought persistence and improvement and no regions predicted to develop drought (see map below).
With equal chances for above-, below-, or near-average precipitation forecast for the northern part of the nation from the Great Lakes westward, drought currently in areas across the northern Rockies and western Great Lakes is expected to persist.
Drought is expected to improve - with some removal - across the Central Plains and western Corn Belt, with wetter-than-normal conditions favoured in the monthly outlook, certainly good news for Midwest producers.
The Southwest is more of a mixed bag, with those regions favored to be wetter than average in Arizona and central Texas likely to see drought improvement (or even removal), but with the regions in New Mexico and West Texas that are in drought expected to persist.
