Expanding Alabama Drought

Drought Monitor map, southeast U.S.Watercrunch points out the significant expansion of drought conditions in Alabama in this week’s drought monitor:

The Southeast: With scattered rain last week in the Southeast, drought conditions did not improve, but instead expanded in some areas. Even with recent rains, many recording stations were below normal for July. Mississippi is a good example of conditions in the Southeast: the last 30-day period is one of the wettest on record, but the last 180-day period is the driest on record. D3 and D4 conditions in Alabama also expanded to cover much of the northern and central portions of the state while D3 conditions expanded in southwest Georgia. D2 and D3 conditions expanded to include western Tennessee and into eastern Arkansas. North Carolina saw an expansion of D1 to cover the southern part of the state and D2 expanded in the west. Near record low streamflow and reservoir levels are a big concern in North Carolina.