During the 7-day period ending Tuesday morning, areas of heavy to excessive rainfall provided widespread drought relief across the central and southern Atlantic Coast States and from Texas northward into Montana and the Dakotas.
Likewise, short-term dryness continued to develop in parts of New England.
Click on graphic to animate High Plains The overall trend toward improving conditions in the south contrasting with increasingly dry weather in the far north continued, though some northerly areas benefited from locally heavy rain.
In southern Kansas, another week with moderate to locally heavy showers (1-3 inches, as high as 3.72 inches in Longton, KS) led to widespread reductions of drought intensity and coverage.
Moderate to heavy rainfall (locally more than 3 inches) in northeastern Colorado likewise trimmed the coverage of Abnormal Dryness (D0).
Conditions were largely mixed over the region during the 7-day monitoring period, with generally dry weather in the north contrasting with additional rain in southern portions of the region.
Moderate to heavy rainfall (1-4 inches, locally more) led to widespread reductions in Abnormal Dryness (D0) in central Missouri, with a report of 5.52 inches in Appleton City (north of El Dorado Springs).
Conversely, rain largely bypassed locales from northeastern Missouri into west-central Illinois, with D0 expanded to capture areas reporting half of normal rainfall over the past 60 days.
Despite the continuation of a generally active weather pattern, the Southwest will remain unfavorably dry.
In contrast, wetter-than-normal conditions are expected from the northern Great Basin into northern portions of the Rockies and Great Plains, with a second higher-likelihood area of above-normal rainfall over the southeastern quarter of the nation.