Temperatures were generally near or cooler than normal this week in the Northeast. Conditions were reassessed in Maine and New Hampshire, where severe drought coverage shrunk due to lessening precipitation deficits and improved soil moisture. NortheastДЄside from a few lake effect belts in western New York, weather in the Northeast this week was mostly dry. Southeast of that line, temperatures were mostly cooler than normal, with parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas falling 6 to 10 degrees below normal.

Parts of the Dakotas saw temperatures 6 to 10 degrees warmer than normal. Farther east, roughly northwest of a line from the Great Lakes to El Paso, temperatures were well above normal. Along the Pacific Coast, temperatures were generally within a few degrees of normal this week. While not enough to improve ongoing dryness and drought in the Michigan UP, lake effect snow staved off any worsening of drought. In drier parts of North Carolina and adjacent South Carolina, drought conditions remained the same or worsened. coastline, resulting in some improvements to dryness in Florida, Georgia, and southern South Carolina. Farther east, heavy rainfall struck parts of Florida and the southeast U.S. As a result, some areas along the Texas/Oklahoma border and parts of south Texas saw improvements to drought conditions. Elsewhere in the contiguous United States, widespread rain, amounting to between half an inch and 2 inches, fell in the Southern Great Plains, primarily along and to the east of Interstate 35. For more detail on these changes, please see the West region paragraph below. Outside of the Pacific Coast states, only a few changes were made to the Drought Monitor this week in the West. A few other spots in the West, primarily north and east of the Great Basin, saw some precipitation, but conditions in other parts of the West were largely dry.

Some of these areas saw improvements to ongoing drought conditions as a result of these precipitation events.

Over the last week, multiple storm systems moved into the Pacific Coast, resulting in mostly beneficial precipitation in western portions of Washington, Oregon, and northern California.

Images of the old west