Area residents collected between 1 and 2.25 inches Sunday night into Monday, but that wasn’t enough to put a dent in our current drought.
The KVOE listening area west of US Highway 75 is still in severe drought.
Areas east of the highway are in moderate drought.
The rainfall did cut down Emporia’s precipitation deficit for the calendar year from around 3 inches to around an inch.
Drought is not just a Kansas problem.
The US Drought Monitor says drought now affects 36 percent of the country, up from 32 percent a week ago.
The most significant drought extends from southwest Kansas south to Texas and west to Arizona, and there is a pocket of exceptional drought — the worst on the Drought Monitor scale — straddles the Kansas-Oklahoma line southwest of Wichita.
The area’s weather pattern, which has been largely stable since late October, is becoming unsettled over the next week.
Shower and storm chances are in the picture Friday and again Sunday through Tuesday.